Zaha hadid
Architect of her age
Dame Zaha Hadid was known globally for her dynamic public buildings. She was the first female architect to receive the Pritzker prize, in 2004, and the RIBA Royal Gold Medal, in 2016. Her singular career was abruptly cut short when she passed away suddenly on 31 March 2016 in Miami, aged just 65.
In 2008, when Hadid guest-edited Wallpaper*, we hailed her as the greatest architect of the age, and no one called to argue. She brought her futuristic touch into the magazine, testing the ‘powers and patience of the print production department’ (wrote editor-in-chief Tony Chambers) with greyscale cut-outs across 16 pages.
‘It needs a big hole in the magazine,’ Hadid told art critic Matthew Collings, who profiled her for the issue. The concept was drawn from an installation she designed with Patrik Schumacher for the Venice Architecture Biennale that year. The lotus flower was her starting point for a seductively compressing and expanding form that evolved from abstraction zinto a piece of design.
The structure unfolded from the magazine – slanting like the MAXXI in Rome (2009) and curving like Beijing’s Galaxy SOHO (2012), communicating her organic way of manipulating material and space. Sampling the same idea, the cut-out cover also brought her threedimensional vision into the hands of our readers.
Ever challenging the limits of design and shattering glass ceilings, Hadid received a damehood for her services to architecture in 2012. Now a 400-strong studio, Zaha Hadid Architects carries on her legacy, completing groundbreaking designs such as the Maritime Terminal Salerno (2016), Port House in Antwerp (2016) and the Napoli Afragola High Speed Train Station (2017).