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Philosophy and style At the heart of Hadid’s architectural philoso- phy was a desire to challenge conventions and reimagine the possibilities of space. Over the years, as new technologies and digital anima- tion techniques rapidly developed, the sharp edges of Hadid’s early designs evolved into soft curves and waves. She reimagined the structur- al engineering of bold new forms, creating ar- tistic expressions that blended form and func- tion. Her buildings were more than structures: they became one with the natural topography of their environment, and provided an experi- ence for those who visited them. “I don’t think that architecture is only about shelter, is only about a very simple enclosure. It should be able to excite you, to calm you, to make you think,” she once said. Hadid’s style is today characterised by the use of dynamic and organic forms. Her buildings appear to be in constant motion, with sweep- ing curves and undulating surfaces that defy traditional notions of rigidity. From the flowing lines of the Sheikh Zayed Bridge (1997-2010) to the sinuous curves of the Riverside Museum in Glasgow (2004-2011), her designs evoke a sense of movement and harmony, and embody the spirit of the 21st century, where technology and imagination intertwine. Hadid did not view herself as a follower of any one style or school, but her work was of- ten cited as an example of deconstructivism and neo-futurism. Hadid was one of the early adopters of a fully digitised 3D-design process, but she also continued to draw and paint her designs by hand, not wanting her creativity to brush up against the limits of a computer sys- tem. To describe her work, Hadid’s firm coined

her early reputation with her lecturing: she taught first at the Architectural Association, and would go on, over the years, to teach at Harvard Graduate School of Design, Cambridge Univer- sity, the University of Chicago, the Hochschule für bildende Künste in Hamburg, the University of Illinois at Chicago, and Columbia University. In 1988 she was among seven architects fea- tured in the exhibition Deconstructivism in Ar- chitecture at New York’s Museum of Modern Art. The resulting press coverage helped get her name and unique style into the wider world. A few years later, her first major built design gave her the chance to – finally – shake off the no- tion that her buildings were unbuildable. In 1993, Rolf Fehlbaum, the president-direc- tor general of the Swiss furniture firm Vitra, in- vited Hadid to design a small fire station for his factory in Weil am Rhein, Germany. (Fehlbaum had an incredible eye for design; in 1989 he had commissioned Frank Gehry, who was then a lit- tle-known talent, to build a design museum.) Hadid’s design was a sculptural work made of raw concrete and glass, resembling a bird in flight– and it provided a launching pad for a pi- oneering career. She is well known for some of her seminal built works, such as the Mind Zone at the Greenwich Millennium Dome (1999), a ski jump (2002) in Innsbruck, Austria, and the Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art (2003) in Cincinnati, Ohio. The latter was the first American museum designed by a woman, and it solidified Hadid’s reputation as a formidable architect of built works. “When people see something fantastic they think that it’s not possible to achieve it in real life,” she told The Guardian in 2013. “But that’s not true. You can achieve amazing things.”

Galaxy Soho Beijing

Hotel at the Opus Dubai

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MAXXI Museum Rome

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