Hadid began her studies at the American University in Beirut, Lebanon, receiving a bachelor’s degree in mathematics. In 1972 she traveled to London to study at the Architectural Association, a major centre of progressive architectural thought during the 1970s. There she met the architects Elia Zenghelis and Rem Koolhaas, with whom she would collaborate as a partner at the Office of Metropolitan Architecture. Hadid established her own London-based firm, Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA), in 1979.
In 1983 Hadid gained international recognition with her competition-winning entry for The Peak, a leisure and recreational centre in Hong Kong. This design, a “horizontal skyscraper” that moved at a dynamic diagonal down the hillside site, established her aesthetic: inspired by Kazimir Malevich and the Suprematists, her aggressive geometric designs are characterized by a sense of fragmentation, instability, and movement. This fragmented style led her to be grouped with architects known as “deconstructivists,” a classification made popular by the 1988 landmark exhibition “Deconstructivist Architecture” held at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.
Hadid has been described by The Guardian as the "Queen of the curve," who "liberated architectural geometry, giving it a whole new expressive identity." Although she did not identify as part of a particular school, the terms Deconstructivist, Parametricist, and Abstractionist have variously been used to describe her work. Pritzker Prize jury chairman, Lord Rothschild, described her as, "unswerving in her commitment to Modernism. Always inventive, she's moved away from existing typology, from high tech, and has shifted the geometry of buildings." Likely influenced by her parents' progressive outlook, Hadid has, since her student days, "believed in progress and in creativity's role in progress" and has challenged traditionalism.
Upon her death in 2016, Hadid's studio reported, "Zaha Hadid was widely regarded to be the greatest female architect in the world today," begging the question of the relevance of her gender to her achievements. Hadid resisted typecasting as a female architect or an Iraqi architect for her own advancement, but was keen to reassure others that "they can break through the glass ceiling." Her commitment to encouraging younger professionals also came across in her teaching career. Once named among the world's highest paid architects, as well as an investor in property, restaurants, cosmetics, and fashion, many admired Hadid for her business acumen as well as her architectural ability.
Hadid's gender has undoubtedly colored the reporting of her work and personality by critics. Some, such as Mickey O'Connor, have perceived her confidence as "confrontational," and she is often dubbed a diva, a label she rejected as sexist. Others, like Mark Irving, pointed to her as a force to be reckoned with: "She cuts a dramatic, voluptuous figure in her black outfits ... above which large heavily lidded eyes and purple-painted lips that always seem to be set in a slightly unsatisfied pout, turn on you like the guns of a well-armored battleship."
Yet in Hadid's own accounts, she admitted to often feeling ostracized. This was the case particularly during the events of 1994 in which her competition-winning design for the Cardiff Bay Opera House was subsequently rejected. "People were patronizing towards me all the time. They didn't know how to behave with me. I don't know whether people responded to me in a strange way because they just thought I was one of those eccentric people, or they thought I was a foreigner or behaved funny or I'm a woman." On other occasions, Hadid has referred to herself as "flamboyant" and "eccentric...but I am not a nutcase."
Notwithstanding her feelings of exclusion from particular networking circles, the architect had high profile friends in, for example, Frank Gehry and Norman Foster. At her death, Foster noted "I became very close to her as a friend and colleague in parallel with my deep respect for her as an architect ... she was one of the very few architects as friends who was invited to my 80th birthday party ... she was my dear friend."
Michael Kimmelman of The New York Times adds that although "her soaring structures left a mark on skylines and imaginations," Hadid "embodied ... the era of so-called starchitects who roamed the planet in pursuit of their own creative genius." In line with the typical connotations of "starchitecture," or "star architecture," she has been criticized for the extravagance and celebrity of her designs. Critic Robert Booth has further suggested that favoritism and marketing value are the reason for her having won so many design competitions, rather than architectural talent.
Today, the Zaha Hadid Architects firm remains to carry out her legacy to create transformative spaces.
References
https://www.theartstory.org/artist/hadid-zaha/#pnt_6
https://www.britannica.com/topic/University-of-Chicago
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