Zaha Hadid was born October 31, 1950 in Baghdad, Iraq. She received a degree in mathematics from the AmericanUniversity of Beirut before moving to study at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London. After graduating she worked with her former teachers, Rem Koolhaas and Elia Zenghelis at the Office for Metropolitan Architecture, becoming a partner in 1977. It was with Koolhaas that she met Peter Rice who gave her support and encouragement early on, at a time when her work seemed difficult to build. In 1980 she established her own London-based practice. During the 1980s she also taught at the Architectural Association. She has also taught at prestigious institutions around the world; she held the Kenzo Tange Chair at the Graduate School of Design, Harvard University, the Sullivan Chair at the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Architecture, guest professorships at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste in Hamburg, the Knolton School of Architecture, at the Ohio State University, the Masters Studio at Columbia University, New York and the Eero Saarinen Visiting Professor of Architectural Design at Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut. In addition, she was made Honorary Member of the AmericanAcademy of Arts and Letters and Fellow of the American Institute of Architects. She is currently Professor at the University of Applied Arts Vienna in Austria.
A winner of many international competitions, theoretically influential and groundbreaking, a number of Hadid's winning designs were initially never built: notably, The Peak Club in Hong Kong (1983) and the Cardiff Bay Opera House in Wales (1994). In 2002 Hadid won the international design competition to design Singapore's one-north masterplan. In 2005, her design won the competition for the new city casino of Basel, Switzerland. In 2004 Hadid became the first female recipient of the Pritzker Architecture Prize, architecture's equivalent of the Nobel Prize. Previously, she had been awarded an CBE for services to architecture. She is a member of the editorial board of the Encyclopædia Britannica. In 2006, Hadid was honoured with a retrospective spanning her entire work at the GuggenheimMuseum in New York. In that year she also received an Honorary Degree from the AmericanUniversity of Beirut.
Work
Much of Hadid's early work was conceptual; realized projects include:
•Guggenheim-Hermitage Vilnius, Vilnius, Lithuania, (2008-) - not realized
•Eli and Edythe Broad Museum, Michigan State University, (2008-)
•London Aquatics Centre, London, UK, (2008-2013)
•CMACGMTower, Marseille, France, (2007-2009)
•[[Chanel Mobile Art Pavilion (Worldwide) [Tokyo, Hong Kong, New York, London, Paris, Moscow], (2006-2008)
•Hoenheim-North Terminus & Car Park (2001), Strasbourg, France
•RosenthalCenter for Contemporary Art (1998), Cincinnati, Ohio
•Vitra Fire Station (1994), Weil am Rhein, Germany
•Z.CAR hydrogen-powered, three-wheeled automobile
She has also undertaken some high-profile interior work, including the Mind Zone at the Millennium Dome in London. Ongoing projects include: The 17,500-seat Aquatics Centre for London, one of the new venues being constructed for the 2012 Summer Olympics. While she was previously slated for work in the Docklands area of Melbourne, it has since been announced that architect Norman Foster will be designing it instead. The MAXXI (NationalMuseum of the 21st Century Arts) in Rome. The Heydar Aliyev Cultural Centre in Baku, Azerbaijan. Zaha Hadid's project was named as the best for the VilniusGuggenheimHermitageMuseum in 2008
