A year without Zaha Hadid: an architect’s legacy

Iraqi architect Zaha Hadid, born in Baghdad in 1950, a naturalised British citizen, died of a heart attack one year ago, on March 31, 2016. Her highly personal style and use of innovative technologies in architecture made Zaha Hadid one of the most controversial figures in contemporary architecture. Her works are viewed by some as expensive projects which fail to fit into their surroundings, and by others as the product of the most advanced technologies in architecture, result of research into the fluidity of spaces and an expression of a personal style that never leaves users or architecture critics indifferent. Her premature death left the world of architecture without one of its key figures, certainly one of the most charismatic women on the contemporary architecture scene.

Her career was dotted with international prizes and records that will never be matched: Zaha Hadid became the first woman to receive the Pritzker Prize in 2004 and the RIBA Royal Gold Medal in February 2016. Her works include the Vitra Fire Station in Weil Am Rhein, Germany (1993), which brought her international fame, and MAXXI: National Museum of 21st Century Arts in Rome (2009), which won her the Riba Stirling Prize in 2010. Other projects covered in Floornature and Livegreenblog include the Evelyn Grace Academy, winner of the 2011 Riba Stirling Prize, the Guangzhou Opera House in China (2010), the London Aquatics Centre built in 2011 for the 2012 Olympics, and Aliyev Heydar Centre in Baku (2013). Projects completed in 2015 include Messner Mountain Museum Corones in Italy, the Investcorp Building housing the Middle East Centre at St Antony’s College - Oxford University, and the Dominion Office Building in Moscow. Buildings completed in 2016 include Salerno Maritime Station in Italy, the Port House, a new port management centre in Antwerp, Belgium, and The Winton Gallery, a new gallery of mathematics at the London Science Museum; while the Leeza Soho skyscraper is still under construction in Beijing.

(Agnese Bifulco)

Images courtesy of Zaha Hadid Architects www.zaha-hadid.com

Zaha Hadid portrait by Brigitte Lacombe
Vitra Fire Station, Weil am Rhein, Germany, photo by Christian Richters
Serpentine Sackler Gallery, London, photo by Luke Hayes
Guangzhou Opera House, Guangzhou, photo by Virgile Simon Bertrand
Galaxy Soho Beijing, photo by Hufton+Crow
MAXXI Museum of XXI Century Art, Rome: photo by Iwan Baan, Richard Bryant
London Aquatics Centre, photo by Hufton+Crow
Heydar Aliyev Centre, Baku, photo by Hufton+Crow, Iwan Baan
Messner Mountain Museum, Corones, photo by Inexhibit
Salerno Maritime Terminal, photo by Hélène Binet
Port House, Antwerp, photo by Hufton+Crow
Mathematics: The Winton Gallery, photo by Luke Hayes
Leeza Soho, rendering by MIR

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