Zaha Hadid

Unique style, sleek, futuristic design, curvy, sensual lines; all apt phrases to describe the aesthetic of Zaha Hadid, the world’s most prized and influential woman architect. She was a great artist and a true pioneer.

She was born in Baghdad, Iraq, and schooled in Beirut and in London, where she met an important mentor, Rem Koolhas, with whom she worked in the 1980s in Holland. She taught at several American universities (Harvard, Yale, Columbia, University of Illinois at Chicago, and Ohio State) and established her own firm in London, Zaha Hadid Architects, where she was based. She became a naturalized citizen of the U.K., and was appointed a Dame of the Order of the British Empire. She was the only woman to win a Pritzker Prize, the world’s most prestigious architecture award, and has been honored with two Stirling Prizes and a Royal Gold Medal from the Royal Institute of British Architects, the only woman to win the latter.

In 2017, Hadid’s first residential building in the U.S., at 520 West 28th Street — in the art-centric Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, abutting the beautiful High Line Park — was completed. But our appreciation for her work goes far and wide, from the Guangzhou Opera House in China to the London Aquatics Centre, known for the 2012 Olympics, to her two American museums, the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati and the Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University in Lansing. We adore her product designs, as well, from furniture to shoes. Hadid is a state of mind, a worldview, that extends far beyond metal and glass.

Her design for the National Olympic Stadium in Tokyo for the 2020 Games was controversially scrapped by the Japanese government because of escalating costs—a decision that for her many admirers was a source of deep disappointment. We offer here some images of a trailblazing, wondrous career.