The master who redefined architecture: Who is Zaha Hadid?

During her long career, she built modern works in Rome, Berlin, Abu Dhabi, Barcelona, London, Glasgow, Beijing, Zaragoza, New York, Baku, and many other cities.

"I traveled a lot with my family when I was a child. My biggest interest with my father was to visit museums and historical monuments in every country we visited. My father took me to the Cordoba Mosque in Spain, for example. Among the places I saw, it was one of the places that impressed me the most. Of course, we also visited other very magnificent places. , but this mosque has a special place for me."

World-famous Iraqi Architect Zaha Hadid, in an interview she gave a year before her death on March 31, 2016, described the impact her father had on her and what she remembered from that trip.

Dame Zaha Mohammad Hadid (31 October 1950 – 31 March 2016) was an Iraqi and British architect, artist and designer, recognized as a major figure in architecture of the late-20th and early-21st centuries. Born in Baghdad, Iraq, Hadid studied mathematics as an undergraduate and then enrolled at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in 1972. 

Zaha Hadid, who was born in Baghdad, the capital of Iraq, on October 31, 1950, as the youngest of three siblings, received a careful education since her childhood. Her father, Muhammad Hadid, was an industrialist, wealthy, Sunni Muslim who was also minister of economy in the Iraqi government for a while. Muhammad Hadid, who wanted to raise his only daughter Zaha in a Western-style, enrolled her in a Catholic girls' school in Baghdad. Zaha Hadid studied at this school with Muslim children, as well as Jews and Christians. All girls at the school were given education according to their own religion.

Zaha Hadid, who was sent to Beirut for high school and university after finishing primary school, studied mathematics at the American University of Beirut. Then, in 1972, she set out to realize her dreams by enrolling in the London Academy of Architecture.

Zaha, who inherited her extraordinary drawing talent from her mother, decided to become an architect at the age of 11. An architect who visited them with drawings of the house her aunt was going to build fascinated him. While looking at the projects and figures on paper, she already guessed that architecture would be an ideal career for him.

The ruins of Sumer and other ancient works in Iraq, to which her father took him, were also the things that strengthened her passion for architecture.

Zaha Hadid would later say that the Cordoba Mosque continued to fascinate her throughout her life...

Saddam Hussein's seizure of power in Iraq in the late 1970s caused many upper-class people, such as the Hadid family, to leave the country. Her family settled in London, next to Zaha, who at that time had begun to climb the steps of her own career. As a wealthy and educated Iraqi family, the Hadids had no difficulty in establishing a high-ranking life for themselves in London.

Zaha Hadid, who continued her architectural studies in London, started working at the Metropolitan Architectural Office immediately after graduating from the academy in 1977. Founded by the famous Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas, the company stood out with its openness to new ideas. Young Zaha successfully created the first forms of the architectural style here.

Three years later, when she opened her own architecture office in 1980, she began to work freely on her own unique models and shapes.

Zaha Hadid, who built construction only on demand until the early 1990s, participated in many competitions and won awards, but most of her projects remained on paper, completed her first major project in Germany in 1993. When the construction of the fire station in the city of Weil am Rhein, where the main campus of the Vitra company is located, started in 1989 and was completed four years later, one of Zaha Hadid's classic works emerged.

The following year, Zaha Hadid's project won first place in the competition for the opera house to be built on the coast of Cardiff, England. The project, which was deemed too modern, could not be built due to the withdrawal of sponsors. Hadid, who was devastated by this incident, continued her work even more ambitiously. Hadid, who won a competition in 1999, built the jumping platform and building of the Bergisel Ski Resort near the city of Innsbruck, Austria. The building, opened in 2002, quickly became the symbol of the region.

Hadid, who built the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati, USA, in the same period, was now an architect in demand from all over the world.

All the works she created became symbols in a short time. Zaha Hadid, who teaches architecture at prestigious universities in the USA such as Harvard, Chicago, and Yale, also had a productive career in the field of interior architecture.

Many restaurants, houses, and official residences passed through Hadid's skillful hands. Hadid also designed the products of many famous brands and determined their concepts.

On March 31, 2016, "breaking news" from the agencies announced to the world that Zaha Hadid had died as a result of a sudden heart attack. The famous architect, whose bronchitis recurred while spending her holiday at her home in Miami, USA, died of a heart attack in the hospital where she was taken for treatment.

Zaha Hadid, who never married and lived alone throughout her 65-year life, donated a significant part of her £67 million fortune to charities and the foundation to be established in her name.

In her will, she also wrote to give 500 thousand pounds to her business partner Patrik Schumacher, 1.7 million pounds to her four nephews, and 500 thousand pounds to her brother Haytham Hadid.