Zaha Hadid And Her Architecture Wonderland

When she breathed her last on Thursday in a Miami hospital, Dame Zaha Hadid, one of the towering architectural personalities of the late 20^th and early 21^st centuries, left many an unfinished task behind. She was detected with bronchitis earlier this week and died after a sudden heart attack.

Born on October 31, 1950, Hadid set up her company, Zaha Hadid Architects, in 1979. Though hers was not a rags-to-riches story – her father was an industrialist and politician educated in London – it was not easy for Hadid, a Baghdad-born British national, to make a name for herself in a field that is largely male-dominated.

Both loved and criticised for her unconventional and complex modern designs, Hadid would remain a figure to draw inspiration from.

A day after her demise, PropGuide lists five of Hadid's landmark works that will continue to inspire the world of architecture.

• Vitra Fire Station

Built in 1993 in Weil am Rheim, Germany, Vitra Fire Station was her first major work to see the light of day. Before this, most of her works had been small commissions or those that remained only on paper. Though sharp-winged design claimed recognition from critics, the fire station staff was not much impressed; it left the building, which was later turned into an event-organising space.

(Wikimedia)

• Lois and Richard Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art

Compared with her first work of art, the Lois and Richard Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art, built in 2003 in Cincinnati, was a modest project. Appreciating the work, however, New York Times journalist Herbert Muschamp, one of her many admirers, wrote: “(The Center is) the most important American building to be completed since the end of the Cold War.” This building contributed to Hadid winning the Pritzker Award in 2004.

(Flickr/mareklug)

• MAXXI Art Museum

Appreciated and criticised equally by her audience for her de-constructed fluidity concept, Hadid visualised in Rome's static architecture a marvel like MAXXI Art Museum. Present among apartment buildings in Rome's Flaminio locality, across 27,000 square metres of space, this modern-day museum vies for attention along with the other historic monuments of the city. The museum was built in 2009.

(Wikipedia)

• Guangzhou Opera House

Spread across 70,000 sq m and overlooking the Pearl River, the sprawling Guangzhou Opera House in China is one of the complex designs created by Hadid in her most constructive years. For an emerging economy like China, Opera House stands as a marvel.

(Wikipedia)

• London Aquatics Center

Hadid cited nature and history as the prime source of her inspiration. This led Hadid to apply the “fluid geometry of water in motion” to build this center for the 2012 Summer Olympics. With its 50-metre pools, the Aquatics Center is quite popular among the city dwellers for recreational activities.

(Wikipedia)

Awards and recognitions

Here is a list of some of the most prestigious awards and recognitions that Hadid received for her disruptive work in the field of architecture:

• The Pritzker Architecture Prize, considered the architecture world's Nobel, in 2004
• Forbes named her among the world's most powerful women in 2008
• Unesco named her an Artist for Peace in 2010
• The Stirling Prize from Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), in 2010 and 2012
• TIME magazine in 2012 named her in its 'Most Influential People in the World' list
• Royal Gold Medal from RIBA in 2016