Hadid was born in 1950 in
Baghdad,
Iraq. She received a degree in
mathematics from the
American University of Beirut before moving to study at the
Architectural Association School of Architecture in
London.
After graduating she worked with her former teachers,
Rem Koolhaas and
Elia Zenghelis at the
Office for Metropolitan Architecture, becoming a partner in 1977. It was with
Koolhaas that she met the engineer
Peter Rice who gave her support and encouragement early on, at a time when her work seemed difficult to build. In 1980 she established her own London-based practice. During the 1980s she also taught at the Architectural Association. She has also taught at prestigious institutions around the world; she held the
Kenzo Tange Chair at the Graduate School of Design, Harvard University, the Sullivan Chair at the
University of Illinois at Chicago School of Architecture, guest professorships at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste in Hamburg, the Knowlton School of Architecture, at
The Ohio State University, the Masters Studio at Columbia University, New York and the Eero Saarinen Visiting Professor of Architectural Design at the
Yale School of Architecture in New Haven, Connecticut. In addition, she was made Honorary Member of the
American Academy of Arts and Letters and an Honorary
Fellow of the American Institute of Architects.
[1] She has been on the Board of Trustees of
The Architecture Foundation. She is currently Professor at the
University of Applied Arts Vienna in Austria.
A winner of many
international competitions, theoretically influential and groundbreaking, a number of Hadid's winning designs were initially never built: notably, The Peak Club in
Hong Kong (1983) and the
Cardiff Bay Opera House in
Wales (1994). In 2002 Hadid won the international design competition to design Singapore's
one-north masterplan. In 2005, her design won the competition for the new city casino of
Basel,
Switzerland. In 2004 Hadid became the first female recipient of the
Pritzker Architecture Prize, architecture's equivalent of the Nobel Prize. Previously, she had been awarded a
CBE for services to architecture. She is a member of the editorial board of the
Encyclopædia Britannica. In 2006, Hadid was honored with a retrospective spanning her entire work at the
Guggenheim Museum in New York. In that year she also received an Honorary Degree from the
American University of Beirut.
Zaha Hadid's architectural design firm -
Zaha Hadid Architects - is over 350 people strong, headquartered in a Victorian former school building in
Clerkenwell, London.
In 2008, she ranked 69th on the
Forbes list of "
The World's 100 Most Powerful Women".
[2] On 2 January 2009, she was the guest editor of the
BBC's flagship morning radio news programme,
Today.
[3]
In 2010 she was named by Time magazine as influential thinker in the 2010 TIME 100 issue.
[4] In September 2010, The British magazine
New Statesman listed Zaha Hadid at number 42 in their annual survey of "The World's 50 Most Influential Figures 2010".
[5]
She won the 2010
Stirling Prize for one of her most celebrated work, the
Maxxi in
Rome.
Hadid is the designer of the
Dongdaemun Design Plaza & Park in
Seoul,
South Korea, which is expected to be the centerpiece of the festivities for the city's designation as
World Design Capital 2010. The complex is scheduled to be completed in 2011.
Non-architectural work
She has also undertaken some high-profile interior work, including the
Mind Zone and
Feet zone at the
Millennium Dome in London and the Z.CAR hydrogen-powered, three-wheeled automobile. In 2009, she worked with the clothing brand
Lacoste, to create a new, high fashion, and advanced boot.
[6] In the same year, she also collaborated with the brassware manufacturer Triflow Concepts
[7] to produce two new designs in her signature parametric architectural style. Her unique contributions to brassware design and other fields continue to push the boundaries of innovation.
In 2007, Zaha Hadid designed the Moon System Sofa for leading Italian furniture manufacturer
B&B Italia.
[8]
Architectural work
Conceptual projects
Completed projects
- Vitra Fire Station (1994), Weil am Rhein, Germany
- Hoenheim-North Terminus & Car Park (2001), Hoenheim, France
- Bergisel Ski Jump (2002), Innsbruck, Austria
- Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art (2003), Cincinnati, Ohio
- BMW Central Building (2005), Leipzig, Germany
- Ordrupgaard annexe (2005), Copenhagen, Denmark
- Phaeno Science Center (2005), Wolfsburg, Germany
- Maggie's Centres at the Victoria Hospital (2006), Kirkcaldy, Scotland
- Tondonia Winery Pavilion (2001–2006),[9] Haro, Spain
- Eleftheria Square redesign (2007), Nicosia, Cyprus
- Hungerburgbahn new stations (2007), Innsbruck, Austria
- Chanel Mobile Art Pavilion (Worldwide) Tokyo, Hong Kong, New York, London, Paris, Moscow, (2006–2008)
- Bridge Pavilion (2008), Zaragoza, Spain
- J. S. Bach Pavilion, Manchester International Festival (2009), Manchester, UK
- CMA CGM Tower (2010), Marseille, France
- Pierres Vives (2002–2012), Montpellier, France
- MAXXI - National Museum of the 21st Century Arts (1998–2010), Rome, Italy.[10] Stirling Prize 2010 winner.
- Guangzhou Opera House (2010), Guangzhou, People's Republic of China.
- London Aquatics Centre (2011), 2012 Summer Olympics, London, UK.
- Riverside Museum (2007–2011) development of Glasgow Transport Museum, Scotland
- Evelyn Grace Academy (2006–2010) in Brixton, London, UK
Ongoing and future projects
- New Maritime Terminal, Salerno, Italy (to be completed by 2011).
- Eli and Edythe Broad Museum, Michigan State University, (2008–12)[11]
- Mandarin Oriental Dellis Cay, Villa D (2012) (private home under construction), Dellis Cay, Turks & Caicos Islands
- Napoli Afragola railway station, Italy (completion delayed to 2013)[12]
- Citylife office tower (Storto) and residentials, Milan, Italy (to be completed by 2014)
- Nuragic and Contemporary art museum (2006) (on hold), Cagliari, Italy
- d'Leedon, Singapore (2011)
- Heydar Aliyev Cultural Centre in Baku, Azerbaijan.[13]
- Dongdaemun Design Plaza & Park in Seoul, South Korea.[14]
Recently
[when?] Hadid has been commissioned by the Iraqi government to design the new building for the Central Bank of Iraq. This project will be her first project for her native country.
[15]
Other work includes Pierres Vives, the new departmental records building (to host three institutions, namely, the archive, the library and the sports department), for French department
Hérault, in
Montpellier.
[16]
Zaha Hadid's project was named as the best for the
Vilnius Guggenheim Hermitage Museum in 2008. She designed the
Innovation Tower for
Hong Kong Polytechnic University, scheduled for completion in 2011, and the Chanel Mobile Art Pavilion that was displayed in Hong Kong in 2008.
[17][18][19] She completed a new building for
Evelyn Grace Academy, London, in 2010.
[20]
