With deep sense of loss and sadness I write about the death of an enigma, Zaha Hadid.
Zaha Hadid's name was and still is so common to architects (practicing and students) designers and the media. Her design are a beauty to behold albeit some being controversial.
ZAHA HADID 1950-2016
She was born in Iraq, but moved to Britain were she lived for most of her life and practice from her London base office. Architect Zaha Hadid Hons. FAIA, DBE obviously let architecture in a better state than she met the noble profession. After working with some architects she started her in 1979. From her firm called Zaha Hadids Architect with it office in London which serve as a nest from where many of her iconic designs were hatched. She has won many awards for her style and uniqueness most prestigious Pritzker Architecture price. She recently won RIBA Gold medal.
With her medal.
For three decades and more, she has wowed the world with her designs, she dare into areas many were afraid to venture, she made curves look easy, she worked impressively with new surface materials. She was a fashion designer though didn't make her name there but left a mark. She also made her ingenuity felt in the hardware industry.
Click to download a little clip of her Architectural works.
OFFICIAL STATEMENT
The firm she founded, Zaha Hadid Architect have released an official statement. Read below:
"It is with great sadness that Zaha Hadid
Architects have confirmed that Dame
Zaha Hadid , DBE died suddenly in Miami
in the early hours of this morning. She
had contracted bronchitis earlier this
week and suffered a sudden heart attack
while being treated in hospital.
Zaha Hadid was widely regarded to be the
greatest female architect in the world
today. Born in Baghdad in 1950, she
studied mathematics at the American
University of Beirut before starting her
architectural journey in 1972 at the
Architectural Association in London.
By 1979 she had established her own
practice in London – Zaha Hadid
Architects – garnering a reputation
across the world for her ground-breaking
theoretical works including The Peak in
Hong Kong (1983), the Kurfürstendamm
in Berlin (1986) and the Cardiff Bay
Opera House in Wales (1994).
Working with office partner Patrik
Schumacher, her interest was in the
interface between architecture,
landscape, and geology; which her
practice integrates with the use of
innovative technologies often resulting in
unexpected and dynamic architectural
forms.
Zaha Hadid’s first major built
commission, one that affirmed her
international recognition, was the Vitra
Fire Station in Weil Am Rhein, Germany
(1993); subsequent notable projects
including the MAXXI: Italian National
Museum of 21st Century Arts in Rome
(2009), the London Aquatics Centre for
the 2012 Olympic Games (2011) and the
Heydar Aliyev Centre in Baku (2013)
illustrate her quest for complex, fluid
space. Buildings such as the Rosenthal
Center for Contemporary Art in Cincinnati
(2003) and the Guangzhou Opera House
in China (2010) have also been hailed as
architecture that transforms our ideas of
the future with visionary spatial concepts
defined by advanced design, material and
construction processes.
In 2004, Zaha Hadid became the first
woman to be awarded the Pritzker
Architecture Prize. She twice won the
UK ’s most prestigious architecture
award, the RIBA Stirling Prize: in 2010 for
the MAXXI Museum in Rome, a building
for the staging of 21st century art, the
distillation of years of experimentation, a
mature piece of architecture conveying a
calmness that belies the complexities of
its form and organisation; and the Evelyn
Grace Academy, a unique design,
expertly inserted into an extremely tight
site, that shows the students, staff and
local residents they are valued and
celebrates the school’s specialism
throughout its fabric, with views of
student participation at every turn.
Zaha Hadid’s other awards included the
Republic of France’s Commandeur de
l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, Japan’s
Praemium Imperiale and in 2012, Zaha
Hadid was made a Dame Commander of
the Order of the British Empire. She was
made Honorary Member of the American
Academy of Arts and Letters and Fellow
of the American Institute of Architecture.
She held various academic roles
including the Kenzo Tange Chair at the
Graduate School of Design, Harvard
University; the Sullivan Chair at the
University of Illinois, School of
Architecture. Hadid also taught studios at
Columbia University, Yale University and
the University of Applied Arts in Vienna."
The pritzker family also released their own statement:
"The Pritzker Family and the Pritzker Architecture Prize organization are deeply saddened by the passing of Dame Zaha Hadid. She was truly a pioneer in the field
of architecture. The 2004 Pritzker Architecture Prize laureate, she represents the highest aspirations of the Pritzker Architecture Prize. She also served on the jury for one year. Zaha Hadid will be remembered for her talent, creativity, commitment, loyalty and friendship."
Details of Zaha Hadid’s memorial service will be announced shortly. Watch this space.
Messages of condolences can be sent to: pa@zaha-hadid.com
