Dame Zaha Hadid,
the world-renowned architect, whose designs include the London Olympic
aquatic centre, has died aged 65. The British designer, who was born in
Iraq, had a heart attack on Thursday while in hospital in Miami, where
she was being treated for bronchitis.
Hadid’s buildings have been commissioned around the world and she was
the first woman to receive the Royal Institute of British Architects
(RIBA) gold medal.
A lengthy statement released by her company said: “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.”
Speaking from Mexico, Richard Rogers, whose buildings include the
Pompidou Centre and the Millennium Dome, told the Guardian that the news
of Hadid’s death was “really, really terrible”.
“She was a great architect, a wonderful woman and wonderful person,”
Lord Rogers said. “Among architects emerging in the last few decades, no
one had any more impact than she did. She fought her way through as a
woman. She was the first woman to win the Pritzker prize.
“I got involved with her first in Cardiff when the government threw
her off the project in the most disgraceful way. She has had to fight
every inch of the way. It is a great loss.”
Jane Duncan, RIBA’s president, said: “Dame Zaha Hadid was an
inspirational woman, and the kind of architect one can only dream of
being. Visionary and highly experimental, her legacy, despite her young
age, is formidable.
“She leaves behind a body of work from buildings to furniture,
footwear and cars, that delight and astound people all around the world.
The world of architecture has lost a star today.”
The architect Daniel Libeskind said he was devastated by her death. “Her spirit will live on in her work and studio. Our hearts go out,” he said.
“She was an extraordinary role model for women. She was fearless and a
trailblazer – her work was brave and radical. Despite sometimes feeling
misunderstood, she was widely celebrated and rightly so.”
Architect Graham Morrison said: “She was so distinct that there isn’t
anybody like her. She didn’t fit in and I don’t mean that meanly. She
was in a world of her own and she was extraordinary.”
The British culture minister, Ed Vaizey, posted on Twitter, saying he was stunned at the news and praising her “huge contribution to contemporary architecture”.
The London mayor, Boris Johnson, tweeted: “So sad to hear of death of
Zaha Hadid, she was an inspiration and her legacy lives on in wonderful
buildings in Stratford and around the world.”
Hadid, born in Baghdad in 1950, became a revolutionary force in
British architecture even though she struggled to win commissions in the
UK for many years. The Iraqi government described her death as “an
irreplaceable loss to Iraq and the global community”.
She studied mathematics at the American University of Beirut before
launching her architectural career in London at the Architectural
Association.
By 1979, she had established her own practice in London – Zaha Hadid
Architects – and gained a reputation across the world for groundbreaking
theoretical works including the Peak in Hong Kong (1983),
Kurfürstendamm 70 in Berlin (1986) and the Cardiff Bay opera house in
Wales (1994).
The first major build commission that earned her international
recognition was the Vitra fire station in Weil Am Rhein, Germany (1993),
but her scheme to build the Cardiff opera house was scrapped in the
1990s and she did not produce a major building in the UK until the
Riverside museum of transport in Glasgow was completed in 2011.
Other notable projects included the Maxxi:
Italian National Museum of 21st Century Arts in Rome (2009), the London
aquatics centre for the 2012 Olympic Games (2011), the Heydar Aliyev
centre in Baku (2013) and a stadium for the 2022 football World Cup in
Qatar.
Buildings such as the Rosenthal Centre of Contemporary Art in
Cincinnati (2003) and the Guangzhou opera house in China (2010) were
also hailed as architecture that transformed ideas of the future. Other
designs include the Serpentine Sackler Gallery in Kensington Gardens,
west London, and the BMW factory in Leipzig, one of her first designs to
be built.
She became the first female recipient of the Pritzker
architecture prize in 2004 and twice won the UK’s most prestigious
architecture award, the RIBA Stirling prize. Other awards included the
Republic of France’s Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and
Japan’s Praemium Imperiale.
Hadid won acclaim in Scotland for designing the popular Riverside
Museum in Glasgow, known for its distinctive roof structure. Muriel
Gray, chair of the board of governors at the Glasgow School of Art, tweeted a picture of the Riverside museum with the message: “Horrible shocking news that Zaha Hadid, incredible architectural trailblazer has just died. Huge loss to design.”
Hadid was recently awarded the RIBA’s 2016 royal gold medal, the first woman to be awarded the honour in her own right.
Architect Sir Peter Cook wrote in his citation at the time: “In our
current culture of ticking every box, surely Zaha Hadid succeeds, since,
to quote the royal gold medal criteria, she is someone who ‘has made a
significant contribution to the theory or practice of architecture … for
a substantial body of work rather than for work which is currently
fashionable’.
“For three decades now she has ventured where few would dare … Such
self confidence is easily accepted in film-makers and football managers,
but causes some architects to feel uncomfortable. Maybe they’re
secretly jealous of her unquestionable talent. Let’s face it, we might
have awarded the medal to a worthy comfortable character. We didn’t. We
awarded it to Zaha: larger than life, bold as brass and certainly on the
case.”
Speaking in February on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs, Hadid
said: “I don’t really feel I’m part of the establishment. I’m not
outside, I’m on the kind of edge, I’m dangling there. I quite like it …
I’m not against the establishment per se. I just do what I do and that’s
it.”
Levete,
who co-designed the spaceship-like media centre at Lord’s cricket
ground, described her as “a true and loyal friend … a confidante and
someone I could turn to for advice”.
She said: “She was an absolute inspiration to many and her global impact was really profound.”
Kelly Hoppen, the interior designer who appeared in BBC2’s show Dragons’ Den, tweeted: “Deeply
saddened by the news of Zaha Hadid’s death. She was an iconic architect
who pushed the boundaries to another level xx ZahaHadid”
Angela Brady, a former president of RIBA, described Hadid as “one of our greatest architects of our time”.
She added: “She was a tough architect, which is needed as a woman at
the top of her profession and at the height of her career. She will be
sadly missed as an iconic leader in architecture and as a role model for
women in architecture.”
A spokeswoman for BMW said: “She was an icon in the world of
architecture, groundbreaking in her way to create with a very
distinctive style. On the 10th anniversary of our Leipzig plant’s
central building which she was the architect for , Zaha said that she
felt it gave testament to the plant’s vision. We are glad she felt this
way, too.”
Author Kathy Lette tweeted Hadid’s “beautiful, undulating feminine designs proved that u didn’t need a phallic edifice complex 2 be a brilliant architect”.
Tamara Rojo, English National Ballet director and dancer, tweeted:
“Devastated by the passing of the great Zaha Hadid” with a picture of
“her stunning Opera House in Guangzhou where we performed last year”.
Source: The Guardian
In Asia, two unconventional built skyscrapers clearly have signature of Zaha Hadid at every angles you look.
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| Hong Kong Polytechnic University |
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| Wangjing SOHO, China |
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