Zaha Hadid
Zaha Hadid
Dame Zaha Mohammad Hadid, DBEwas an Iraqi-born British architect. She was the first Arab woman who received the Pritzker Architecture Prize, winning it in 2004. She received the Stirling Prize in 2010 and 2011. In 2012, she was created a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire and in 2015 she became the first woman to be awarded the RIBA Gold Medal in her own right...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionArchitect
Date of Birth31 October 1950
CityBaghdad, Iraq
funny-inspirational believe sacrifice
You have to really believe not only in yourself; you have to believe that the world is actually worth your sacrifices.
sticks degrees architecture
There are 360 degrees, so why stick to one?
bad-ass thinking hands
Architecture is really about well-being. I think that people want to feel good in a space ... On the one hand it's about shelter, but it's also about pleasure.
jewels cities trying
I'm trying to discover - invent, I suppose - an architecture, and forms of urban planning, that do something of the same thing in a contemporary way. I started out trying to create buildings that would sparkle like isolated jewels; now I want them to connect, to form a new kind of landscape, to flow together with contemporary cities and the lives of their peoples.
nice design quality
As a woman, I'm expected to want everything to be nice and to be nice myself. A very English thing. I don't design nice buildings - I don't like them. I like architecture to have some raw, vital, earthy quality.
appreciated proportion dare
I have always appreciated those who dare to experiment with materials and proportions.
smart inspiration feminist
Yes, I'm a feminist, because I see all women as smart, gifted and tough.
eccentric
I am eccentric, I admit it, but I am not a nutcase.
today architecture building
It is insufficient for architecture today to directly implement an existing building typology; it instead requires architects to carefully examine the whole area with new interventions and programmatic typologies
husband nice kids
I don't think people should do things because you know, 'I am turning this age, I must go have a husband.' If you find somebody and it works out then have kids, it's very nice. But if you don't, you don't.
museums furniture pedestal
I don't particularly like showing furniture on pedestals, but for whatever reasons you always have to in museums.
block believe museums
Of course I believe imaginative architecture can make a difference to people's lives, but I wish it was possible to divert some of the effort we put into ambitious museums and galleries into the basic architectural building blocks of society.
depression depressing decision
It was such a depressing time. I didn't look very depressed, maybe, but it was really dire. I made a conscious decision not to stop, but it could have gone the other way.
architecture tough difficult
Architecture is unnecessarily difficult. It's very tough.