Chapter 3366: The Queen of Divine Curves, Zaha Hadid Breaks Conventions
Jumbo Huang's Architectural Journeys, Jumbo Heritage List
Chapter 3366: The Queen of Divine Curves, Zaha Hadid Breaks Conventions
A public science education article by Jumbo Huang. For any form of reprint, please contact the author (Jumboheritagelist, Huang_Jumbo).
Architecture should be like a curve, possessing a kind of flowing beauty. One after another, liberated within constraints.
She shatters the rigidity of buildings, using highly expressive designs to showcase a sense of movement that architecture originally lacked.
A woman who constantly fought for recognition, working in an industry that integrates humanity's most complex ambitions with its most basic needs.
In Zaha's designs, the most iconic feature is the "curve." No matter how rigid the structure, after her deconstruction, it always exhibits a unique fluidity.
Do you know who the female architect behind great buildings like Beijing Daxing International Airport, the Guangzhou Opera House, Nanjing International Youth Cultural Center, Wangjing SOHO, and Shanghai Hongqiao Lingkong SOHO is? In fact, many of the "flowing" effect buildings we see in China are all the work of a single female architect.
She is the first woman in history to win the Pritzker Architecture Prize (the equivalent of a Nobel Prize in architecture), and has been called the "Queen of Architecture" or the "Lady Gaga of Architecture."
On March 21, 2004, the Hyatt Foundation awarded her the Pritzker Prize, often regarded as architecture's Nobel. She set two records—she was the first female recipient in the prize's 25-year history, and also the youngest. One of the jurors, Carlos Jimenez, a professor of architecture at Rice University, commented on her contribution: "She makes architecture a siphon for urban energy, showing us the gush and flow of a city's vitality."
In 2015, Britain's highest architectural honor, the Royal Gold Medal, was awarded to Zaha Hadid, making her the first female recipient in its history.
In a field dominated by men, Hadid achieved such brilliant success entirely through her own years of relentless effort. The road to success is never smooth. Hadid also endured many major setbacks. As the jury noted, Hadid's path to recognition was a "heroic struggle."
Hadid's architectural designs are extremely bold and avant-garde, embracing all kinds of bizarre and wild ideas. She didn't believe in harmony. She once said, if there's a pile of shit next to you, would you harmonize with it?
In 1993, she accepted her first commissioned project, a fire station at the Vitra campus in Weil am Rhein, Germany. This project is considered the key work that helped Zaha out of a low point; it shook the architectural world and brought her immense fame.
Although Zaha Hadid had been called a "master of deconstructivism" since the late 1970s for her bold designs, precisely because her designs were too bold, most remained only on paper, earning her the nickname of a "paper architect." The Vitra Fire Station, completed in 1993, was her first officially built work. While still only a proposal and not yet implemented, its fantastical and surreal style had already made it famous.
The Vitra Fire Station is located within a namesake company campus in Weil am Rhein, Germany. Its angular, intersecting concrete planes reshape the street that cuts through it. The Vitra campus integrates many functional areas, including factories, showrooms, and the Vitra Design Museum. Zaha was initially only responsible for designing the fire station, but the project eventually also included boundary walls, an exercise space, and a bicycle shed.
These facilities sit at a bend in the main road that runs through the campus, and this road, along with the fire station at its end, was designed as a linear landscape space echoing the surrounding functional areas. Zaha's design made the Vitra Fire Station more than just an object within the campus; the building defines its own environment. Its walls and roof follow a linear structure, and from the outside, the building appears composed of many planar elements, with these planes and lines tilting and folding to divide the various internal functions.
She was always known for "opposing the right angle" and pursuing the integration and flow of architectural space. What allowed her to realize this style, besides her fundamental skills and imagination, were computer-aided design software programs brought by computing. The former produced artistically rich drawings, while the latter enabled precise calculations. More accurately, they freed architects from a series of processes like load-bearing parameter calculations.
Today, without a doubt, China has become one of the global architects' favorite testing grounds. Just in 2011 and 2012, China consumed more cement than the entire United States did throughout the 20th century. So, the place that truly allowed Zaha Hadid to fully showcase her abilities was China; she should thank us for giving her a platform to reach the pinnacle.
People are amazed by the visual impact of star buildings, and the bubble brought by even more blind construction.
Zaha Hadid's works may seem ordinary but they boldly use space and geometric structures, reflecting the complex characteristics of urban architecture.
"God's curves, the Queen of Architecture." Over more than three decades, she created countless buildings that shook the world.
Zaha Hadid (1950 – March 31, 2016) was born in Baghdad in 1950, an Iraqi-British architect. She was the 2004 Pritzker Architecture Prize laureate. She studied mathematics in Lebanon and entered London's Architectural Association School of Architecture (AA) in 1972 to study architecture, graduating with an AA Diploma in 1977.
Zaha Hadid was born into a wealthy and liberal family in Baghdad, the capital of Iraq. Her parents believed education could lead to independence, and they invested many expectations in their daughter. The son of a family friend of her father was an outstanding architect, and this "elder brother next door" greatly influenced young Hadid. Moreover, her mother's taste also deeply influenced her. From a young age, Hadid watched her mother perform "major spatial shifts" at home—because her mother kept buying unconventional new furniture.
In 1968, Hadid studied mathematics at Beirut, Lebanon. In 1972, the family moved to London for her education, and she began studying at the prestigious Architectural Association School of Architecture. At that time, her tutor was the famous Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas. Even then, Hadid's fiery temper was well-known, but that's exactly why her tutors and classmates liked her, and it was also the source of the explosive force in her work.
In 1977, after graduating, Hadid joined the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA), working there as a student for two years and a partner for six months before establishing her own studio and starting to participate heavily in international competitions. Her designs began featuring sharp pointed spires and long flowing curves like silk scarves, bringing unprecedented visual impact.
In 1982, at an international architecture competition in Hong Kong, Hadid won first prize, strengthening her resolve to continue on this path. However, her entry was initially eliminated during the preliminary review. It was the Japanese architect Arata Isozaki who, with a discerning eye, rescued her proposal from the trash pile. When evaluating the proposal, Isozaki said: "I was attracted by her unique expression and profound philosophical nature."
Hadid was greatly encouraged. She taught at famous universities like Harvard and Yale, and her design works covered almost all categories—doors, windows, furniture, sculptures, lamps, chairs, cups, and tableware. Her paintings were even more avant-garde, exhibited around the world, and permanently collected by professional institutions like the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Deutsches Architekturmuseum in Frankfurt. All this reflects the broad vision of a female designer.
Someone once made an analogy: "Hadid's name is the mark of a bestseller in today's architectural world." She seemed to have smooth sailing, to the point that a reporter from Lebanese television once asked her in an interview, "You are a lucky person, aren't you?" Hadid seriously replied: "No! I strive tenaciously! I put in several times the effort of others! There isn't a day that I let myself off the hook!"
Computer-aided design can display on-screen the objects engineers want to design or the buildings architects envision. The pioneer of this technology was Ivan Sutherland, an engineer at MIT who, in 1963, discovered the principle of user-computer interaction through graphics. Without the magic of CAD, the modern physical world would be impossible. It allows people to instantly modify models of products from screwdrivers to cars, accurately specify their various parameters, and monitor the actual production process.
Nicholas Carr, in his book "The Glass Cage," once mentioned criticisms of CAD: Before CAD existed, the artistic source for architects was drawing. Freehand sketches have a similar communicative function to computer-rendered images, but drawing is not just a way to express ideas; it is a way of thinking. Modernist architect Richard MacCormac stated: "I cannot imagine what I would be left with without drawing. I use drawing as a process of criticism and discovery."
Zaha herself said similar things; her partners admired the exceptionally clean and decisive lines from her pen. Many people who use CAD do so not to create, but to cover up or avoid problems. There is no necessary connection between "how something should be done" and "whether doing it that way is useful," but to solve problems in contexts like architecture, both must be considered. Hand-drawn drawings can achieve this, but CAD cannot.
The parametric design that extends from CAD is not a technology unique to Zaha Hadid Architects. As early as when Frank Gehry designed the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao in Spain, he used software typically used for aerodynamic analysis, thus making parametric software famous.
But even now, many architecture schools only treat it as a tool, whereas Zaha Hadid Architects is a genuine testing ground. They not only apply it on a large scale but also promote its advantages and effects. She began practicing this technologically-backed architectural design approach at the Phaeno Science Centre in Wolfsburg, completed in 2005. Because it required more complex software support, they also established a special collaboration with the tech center in Wolfsburg.
After that, including her first completed project in China, the Guangzhou Opera House, Galaxy SOHO, the Serpentine Gallery, the Heydar Aliyev Cultural Center in Azerbaijan, the Dongdaemun Design Plaza in Seoul, and the Nanjing Youth Olympic Center, Zaha almost always applied parametric design techniques to all her designs. But as mentioned earlier, Zaha's designs are not a product of software; they are a manifestation of true creativity and control.
Zaha was someone who wanted to build houses as works of art. This is certainly a kind of ambition, but not all ambitions end with artistic expression as their ultimate goal.
Interestingly, regardless of how Zaha interpreted her work, the outside world, and even her project employers, interpreted these products entirely from their own perspectives. For example, the Guangzhou Opera House: Zaha likened it to "pebbles washed by water," but the outside world fell into a frenzy over this cultural landmark. Everything is as graphic designer Liu Zhizhi said: "With the emergence of Zaha Hadid, the nouveau riche finally found architectural styles that are sufficiently new, unique, and strange to truly demonstrate that they understand what is futuristic, what is contemporary..."
From the start of construction to its completion, the main controversy surrounding the Guangzhou Opera House centered on its cost, which was criticized as a money-burning "vanity project." According to a 2009 report by Southern media, this building was designed and planned in 2004 with the goal of becoming one of Guangzhou's seven landmark buildings. The total project cost during planning (excluding land price) was about 850 million RMB, but by 2009, the total investment had increased to 1.38 billion RMB.
During this same period, many large Chinese cities seemed to be caught up in a craze of building extravagant "cultural landmarks" with huge investments. According to data from Southern media, the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing cost 2.6 billion RMB, the Chongqing Grand Theatre cost 1.5 billion RMB, and the Shanghai Oriental Art Center cost 1.14 billion RMB.
This can also explain why many of Zaha's recent important and large-scale projects were in developing country markets like China, Brazil, Mexico, Azerbaijan, Cambodia, and the Middle East. On one hand, this is because European and American construction markets tended to be saturated, and economic development slowed or even stagnated, especially after the financial crisis. On the other hand, rising developing countries needed designers like Zaha to assert their sense of existence and their right to be heard.
Just as the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, designed by American architect Frank Gehry, could awaken a small Spanish city named Bilbao, star architecture is seen by many local governments as part of their political achievements. In contrast, commercial architecture tends to be more conservative. SOHO China, which collaborated extensively with Zaha Hadid, is an exception. The founder and chairman, Pan Shiyi, once stated in an interview with Q Daily that it was SOHO that provided Zaha with a broader stage, opportunities for larger-scale architectural design, and more construction support.
Hadid's path to fame was full of thorns. Although she was called a "master of deconstructivism" early on, and despite boldly using geometric structures and winning awards big and small, sometimes up to four in a year, many people still couldn't accept her unconventional design proposals. The famous mainstream architect Robert Adam once sharply criticized her: "She doesn't consider at all the significant floor level differences, tilted walls, high ceilings... the inconvenience caused to the people living and working inside. In Hadid's hands, space is like plasticine, merely satisfying her childish playfulness."
Many of her works could only lie quietly on paper, unable to be realized, and she was even called a "paper architect" for a time. It wasn't until 1993 that Hadid finally produced her breakthrough work—a fire station in the German town of Weil am Rhein. By creating a building that seemed to hover just above the ground, she achieved a mirage-like effect.
In 1994, after tremendous effort, Hadid won first prize in the competition to design the Cardiff Bay Opera House in Wales, UK. However, opposition from the local Cardiff community ultimately killed the project. They didn't want a woman immigrant with a strong accent and dark skin to lead the construction of an important cultural building. Hadid admitted that this setback dealt her a heavy blow. Even after living in London for twenty years, she had yet to see a single one of her works built in the UK.
Another relatively well-known work by Hadid is the Lois & Richard Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art in Cincinnati, USA, which she designed independently. This eight-story building resembles an exquisite box, stacked layer by layer on a glass base, and was praised by The New York Times as a "verdant oasis." Additionally, a car park in Strasbourg, France, and a ski jump in Innsbruck, Austria, also spread Hadid's fame far and wide.
Hadid's designs have always been known for their bold forms, and she is called a "master of deconstructivism" in architectural circles. This reputation mainly stems from her unique creative approach. Her works may seem ordinary, but they boldly employ space and geometric structures, reflecting the complex characteristics of urban architecture.
In 1993, Hadid presented her breakthrough work—a fire station in Weil am Rhein, Germany. Even before its implementation, its fantastical and surrealist style had already made waves. Hadid achieved the desired effect by crafting an elegant, soft exterior for the building while maintaining an ambiguous, hovering relationship with the ground.
This time, Hadid's award-winning work is the Guggenheim Museum in Taichung, Taiwan. The jury believed she could boldly utilize space, cleverly apply geometric principles, integrate the work with its environment, and successfully showcase the beauty of rural life, thus awarding her this year's grand prize. Contemporary architectural master and jury member Frank Gehry praised each of Hadid's designs as brimming with creativity. Another juror, Fumihiko, noted that Hadid greatly expanded the "repertoire" of architecture merely through her design drawings. Once her large-scale complex constructions are built, her creativity will be displayed even more fully, distinguishing her from the deconstructivist masters like Tschumi and Eisenman.
Zaha Hadid is not a deconstructivist master. Hadid herself does not consider herself a deconstructivist architect. She differs from deconstructivist masters Tschumi and Eisenman. Although the architectural forms are similar, Tschumi's ideas originate from Derrida, while Hadid was influenced by Malevich's Suprematism. The commonality in Tschumi and Eisenman's deconstructivism lies in their critique of modernist architecture and the dismantling of the binary opposition between modernist and traditional architecture.
Tschumi reconstructed a non-binary theoretical approach, while Eisenman reconstructed a sort of post-functionalism. In the process of reconstruction, they both moved toward the opposite of what they were dismantling. Hadid, however, through her critique of traditional concepts, redefined the essence of architecture and thus developed an architecture suited for a new era. This is the fundamental purpose Hadid aims to achieve in her architecture.
A multi-faceted individual, Hadid has pursued a path equally emphasizing theoretical academic research and design practice, her practice covering almost all design categories. In 1983, she held a large retrospective of her paintings in London. Since then, some of her highly experimental and avant-garde paintings have been exhibited worldwide and permanently collected by numerous institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Deutsches Architekturmuseum in Frankfurt. All this reflects the broad vision of this extraordinary female designer.
Looking at the conception and expression of Hadid's many designs, her distinct Islamic cultural background appears weaker than the British-style traditional conservatism she absorbed. However, it is undeniable that there is also a tough, intense side to her character. Many of her design techniques and concepts seem to be fervently inspired by the vigorous spirit of her Arab lineage, pushing her boldly forward. At the same time, she also reveals a romantic taste close to nature in some of her "amorphous" and fluid architectural design proposals.
With the goal of "breaking architectural traditions," Hadid has been practicing the idea of making "architecture more architectural," which is why she produces these novel works that transcend conventional mindsets and break through norms.
Hadid's studio is located in the heart of London—the Clerkenwell area. The office is immensely large, with a ceiling decorated with complex jagged blue plexiglass, and books and magazines surround the entire room. Hadid still wears her usual attire: a black belted jacket, sleek black tailored trousers, and black Prada sandals. She can sit for 15 hours a day without developing back strain, because her pink easy chair, designed to follow the S-curve of the human spine, is like a modern soft sculpture. It is a work by the famous designer Verner Panton. "We are enjoying design all the time," Hadid said.
She herself is also an enthusiast of improvisational design. She once designed a pair of "highly architectonic" deep magenta sandals, covered with hollow curves resembling monstera leaves. The wonderfully designed wedge heel makes the shoe appear ambiguously connected to the ground, possessing a magical floating sensation. Hadid's subordinates knew that if this "queen of architecture" came to work wearing sandals she designed herself, it meant that this unusual boss had once again turned into a volcano ready to erupt. "She thinks everyone's work has become too dull, or she finds her own work too dull, so she changes her shoes to lift her spirits. At such times, anyone who is careless will draw her screams and roars."
Hadid was famously strict with her work and subordinates in the industry. She had a robust appearance, with the vigorous energy characteristic of Middle Eastern women. Her hair was center-parted, with the two front locks highlighted, flipped up on both sides, "like a legendary figure parting a curtain," one of her subordinates said, "You cannot help but hold her in awe and respect." Hadid gave instructions in a loud voice, and upon hearing it, her subordinates' hearts would pound. She was the type who could spend over 80 hours a week in the office, and her subordinates, to some extent, had to be workaholics to keep up.
Regarding the talk of her fierce temper, Hadid said, without obsessive-compulsive tendencies, how could one become a good architect? The fact that male architects with similar temperaments are not considered unusual tells you something—it indicates that gender inequality persists. A male architect who hasn't married by a certain age is still seen as an "eligible bachelor," but Hadid, with the same situation, was viewed as a "man-eating witch who scares off Cupid." It is the same logic.
Her work is not entirely Westernized and modern. Growing up in Iraq, Zaha was fascinated from childhood by the intricate patterns of Persian carpets, where weavers' hands transform reality into an intricately interwoven world. Coincidentally, the weavers were also mostly women.
The most direct influence on Zaha was still London's Architectural Association School of Architecture. During her time there, the school was arguably in its golden age, a veritable global center for architectural experimentation. The school inherited the tradition of "architectural image-making," with many of its faculty and students—Cook, Koolhaas, Tschumi, Coates—turning the upheavals of the modern world into the themes and forms of their work. They were bold new modernists, trying to capture ever-changing energy, adding new perspectives, striving to present fresh viewpoints on modernity. Whether it was Tschumi's playful guffaws, Koolhaas's mysterious collages, or Cook's declarative statements, they all synthesized multi-perspectival viewing, rapidly moving and intense forms, and technological frameworks into imagery—imagery that described more than defined.
Not everyone appreciates her designs. Even now, after more than 20 years of living in London, not a single work by Hadid has been built there. In interviews after receiving awards, Hadid herself has spoken bluntly about facing "unfair" treatment in the UK.
For a long time, people believed Hadid's designs were rich in dynamism and modernity. But precisely for these two reasons, many of her works could only lie quietly on paper and could not be realized, leading to her once being called a "paper architect." Although she won awards big and small, sometimes four in a year, she seemed unable to cause the slightest ripple in the world architectural environment. This situation only began to change towards the end of the 1990s.
Besides honors, all kinds of invitations asking her to lead design projects began flooding in like snowflakes. For Hadid, the days ahead would be very busy. In Europe, she had already started preparations to design BMW's new headquarters in Leipzig, Germany, and also took on the task of designing the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Rome. In the United States, she was among the final five candidates to design the 2012 New York Olympic Village. Of course, Hadid also wanted to do something for her hometown, Baghdad, which she had left nearly 30 years ago. "It would be nice to design a building there," Hadid said, because she thought it was truly a beautiful city.
In 2004, the Pritzker Architecture Prize was awarded to a female architect for the first time: Zaha Hadid.
On March 21, the Pritzker Architecture Prize jury announced in Los Angeles, California, that Iraqi-born architect Zaha Hadid, who had acquired British citizenship, was selected as the 2004 laureate. This was the first time in the prize's 26-year history that it had been awarded to a woman. In 2003, Hadid completed an engineering design in the US—the Richard and Lois Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Currently, she was developing another project coexisting with a Frank Lloyd Wright building: the Price Tower Arts Center in Bartlesville, Oklahoma.
Her other completed engineering designs in Europe include: a fire station for the Vitra furniture company in Weil am Rhein, Germany; a state horticultural exhibition building (Lfone Landesgartenschau) in Weil am Rhein, which was the exhibition building for the 1999 garden festival; a car park and tram station on the outskirts of Strasbourg, France; and a ski jump on Bergisel Mountain in western Austria, overlooking the city of Innsbruck.
In various stages of development, she had many other engineering designs, including: the BMW building in Leipzig and the Phaeno Science Centre in Wolfsburg, Germany; the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Rome; the master plan for Bilbao, Spain; the Guggenheim Museum in Taichung, Taiwan; a high-speed train station outside Naples; new public archives, a library, and a sports center in Montpellier, France.
When the jury announced its results, Thomas J. Pritzker, president of the Hyatt Foundation, said: "As the founders and sponsors of the Pritzker Architecture Prize, we are gratified to see the fiercely independent jury bestow this honor on a woman for the first time. Although the physical scale of her major works is relatively small, she has already won widespread acclaim, and her spirit and ideas even show great promise for future development."
Lord Rothschild, chairman of the Pritzker Prize jury, commented: "At the same time, like her theoretical and academic work, Zaha Hadid as a practicing architect is steadfastly committed to modernism. She is always inventive, rejecting existing typologies and high-tech, and she has changed the geometry of buildings." Lord Rothschild added: "In her fourth year at the Architectural Association in London, Hadid completed her graduation thesis project, called Malevich's Tectonik, as a student of Rem Koolhaas (himself the 2000 Pritzker laureate)—she designed a hotel on Hungerford Bridge over the Thames, drawing formal inspiration from Suprematist sources to meet programmatic and site demands. It is therefore a happy coincidence that the award ceremony will take place in the very beautiful and immensely creative city of St. Petersburg, Russia, where Malevich once lived and worked."
The formal award ceremony for this globally known highest honor in architecture was to be held on May 31, 2004. A $100,000 grant and a bronze medallion would be presented to that year's Pritzker laureate, Zaha Hadid, at the Hermitage State Museum, followed by a grand reception and dinner in the museum's Winter Palace. The Pritzker Prize ceremony is held at different locations around the world each year, as a way to pay homage to both historic and contemporary architecture.
Frank Gehry, the 1989 Pritzker laureate and a juror for this year's prize, said: "The 2004 Pritzker laureate is probably one of the youngest winners yet and one of the most clearly defined architectural trajectories we've seen in many years. Her work is full of passion and innovation." There was a new juror on the committee, journalist Karen Stein, editorial director of Phaidon Press. She commented: "Over the last 25 years, Zaha Hadid has built a career confronting conventional thinking—challenging traditional notions of architectural space, practice, and construction."
Jury member Rolf Fehlbaum, chairman of Vitra's board of directors, said: "Beyond constructing physical buildings, Zaha Hadid has radically expanded the formal repertoire of architecture with spatial clarity. As complex constructions now emerge, her innovative power will be fully demonstrated."
Jury member and architecture critic Ada Louise Huxtable said of the selection: "Zaha Hadid is one of the most gifted practitioners in the art of architecture today. From her earliest drawings and models to her current buildings and works in progress, there is a consistent and intensely personal vision, one that has changed the way we see and experience space. Hadid's fragmented geometry and fluid mobility do more than create an abstract, dynamic beauty; this is a body of work that explores and expresses the world we live in."
Another juror from Houston, Carlos Jimenez, professor of architecture at Rice University, said: "Amidst the warnings of formal exuberance and programmatic excess, Zaha Hadid's creations remind us that architecture is a siphon for collective energy, a permanent forgetfulness of urban vitality." Jury member Jorge Silvetti, professor of architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, stated: "Zaha Hadid's buildings are the most convincing proof today that architecture holds a preeminent place among spatial productions. Her ingenious treatment of walls, floors, and roofs, and those transparent, interwoven, and flowing spaces vividly demonstrate that architecture as an art has not exhausted itself; all it requires is imagination."
Zaha Hadid is the third British architect to receive the Pritzker Prize.
Her most prominent and well-known completed projects to date are: the Vitra Fire Station and the State Horticultural Exhibition Building in Weil am Rhein, Germany (1993/1999); the Mind Zone at the Millennium Dome in Greenwich, London (1999); the Hoenheim-Nord Terminus and Car Park in Strasbourg, France (2001); the Bergisel Ski Jump in Innsbruck, Austria (2002); and the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati, USA (2003).
She also completed the following furniture creations and interior designs: Bitar in London (1985); Moonsoon Restaurant in Sapporo (1990); Z-Game (2002) and Z-Scape (2000) furniture manufactured by Sawaya and Moroni; Tea & Coffee Towers for Alessi (2003). Her temporary structures include: Folly in Osaka (1990); the Video Pavilion in Groningen, Netherlands (1990); the Interbuild Blueprint Magazine Pavilion in Birmingham (1995); the installation Meshworks at Villa Medici in Rome, Italy (2000); the Summer Pavilion at the Serpentine Gallery in London, UK (2000); and the R. Lopez de Heredia Vina Tondonia Pavilion in Barcelona, Spain (2001).
In 2016, less than an hour before April Fools' Day in the West, around 11 p.m. Eastern Time on March 31, BBC News released shocking and saddening news: the famous Iraqi-British female architect, 2004 Pritzker Prize laureate Zaha Hadid, had suddenly passed away at the age of 65.
The Guangzhou Opera House, opened in 2010, was Zaha's first completed project in China. Since its opening, various performances at the opera house have attracted nearly 4 million visitors. The opera house is located in the core area of Guangzhou's cultural development. Its unique double-boulder design faces the Pearl River, merging the adjacent buildings with the International Financial Tower in Guangzhou's Zhujiang New Town. Like smooth pebbles washed by a stream, the opera house rests harmoniously by the riverside.
Guangzhou Opera House is located at 1 Zhujiang West Road, Tianhe District, Guangzhou City, Guangdong Province. It is one of the landmark buildings on Guangzhou's new central axis, situated in the Tianhe Central Business District. To its east are the Guangdong Museum and Guangzhou Library, to its west the U.S. Consulate General, to its south the Pearl River and Haixinsha Island, and to its north the Guangzhou International Finance Center.
Covering a total site area of 42,000 square meters with a gross floor area of 73,000 square meters and a total building height of 43.1 meters, the Guangzhou Opera House contains an opera hall, an experimental theater, a contemporary art museum, and three rehearsal halls (opera, ballet, and symphony). Designed by Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid, it is nicknamed "the Twin Pebbles," with its main structures composed of two pebble-like buildings in black, white, and gray tones.
In September 2013, the Guangzhou Opera House received the "FIDIC Centenary Award for Major Construction Projects." In 2014, it was rated one of the "Top Ten Opera Houses in the World" by USA Today.
The structural system of the Guangzhou Opera House uses a "cast steel structure," with its external facade featuring a three-way diagonally intersecting folded-plate lattice shell composed of over 5,000 glass panels and 75,000 stone pieces, identical in size but varied in shape. The opera hall seats 1,804 (including 1,687 regular seats and 117 orchestra pit seats). Its three-tiered audience area is shaped like "embracing hands," with a "starry sky" ceiling. The hall features an asymmetrical configuration, streamlined walls, and special grooves to enhance acoustics.
The opera hall adopts the internationally common "pin" shaped stage layout, divided into a main stage, left and right side stages, and a back stage. The overall stage axis width is 74 meters, the depth is 46 meters, and the proscenium opening is 18 meters wide and 12 meters high.
Designed by Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid, the exterior form of the Guangzhou Opera House is called "the Twin Pebbles," with the main buildings in black, white, and gray tones. The building has no vertical columns nor vertical walls. Due to its irregular geometric form, the "pebbles" appear twisted and slanted, featuring 64 facets, 41 corners, and 104 edges on the exterior surface alone.
Beijing Daxing International Airport, designed by Zaha and opened in 2019, is a new airport located 46 kilometers south of the city center. Catering to the world's fastest-growing demand for international travel, the airport is fully integrated into the country's expanding transportation network. The design needed to accommodate an initial 45 million passengers per year, rising to 72 million by 2025, with further expansion planned to serve up to 100 million passengers and 4 million tons of cargo annually.
The design of its 700,000-square-meter passenger terminal echoes principles of traditional Chinese architecture, organizing interconnected spaces around a central courtyard, guiding all passengers seamlessly through departure, arrival, or transfer zones toward the central court. The terminal's vaulted roof extends to the ground in six flowing directions, supporting the structure and bringing natural light inside, while intuitively guiding all passengers to the central courtyard and providing a straightforward navigation system throughout the building to lead passengers to and from their gates.
Nanjing International Youth Cultural Center is located at 8 Yecheng Road, Jianye District, Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, at the intersection of the Nanjing Youth Olympic Axis and the Yangtze River. It sits north of Jiangshan Avenue, south of Jinshajiang East Road, southeast of Yangtze River Avenue, and west of the southern extension of Yanshan Road. Designed by architect Zaha Hadid, it is a skyscraper complex integrating a hotel, offices, a large parking facility, a shopping mall, convention and exhibition spaces, and serviced apartments.
The center has a total gross floor area of approximately 490,000 square meters, including a 314.5-meter, 68-story high-rise tower; a 249.5-meter, 58-story high-rise tower; and a 46.9-meter, 6-story podium. The building form is inspired by a sailing ship, yet distinct from one.
In October 2017, it received the 2016-2017 Luban Prize; in March 2018, it won the 2017 Huaxia Construction Science and Technology First Prize. The exterior curtain wall extensively uses curves, curved surfaces, and folded angles, employing over 12,000 glass fiber reinforced concrete (GRC) panels, with the largest curved panel covering 35 square meters and weighing up to 2.1 tons. The facade is insulated with standing seam aluminum alloy composite panels.
During construction, 600,000 cubic meters of earth were excavated, and 26,000 tons of structural rebar and 40,000 tons of structural steel were used. A total of 44 elevators and escalators (including 25 escalators) were installed.
Nanjing International Youth Cultural Center was designed by Zaha Hadid Architects, with Zaha Hadid, hailed as a "master of deconstructivism," serving as the chief architectural designer.
The center adopts a three-dimensional, streamlined design inspired by Nanjing's Yunjin brocade. Just as traditional Yunjin brocade is handwoven by artisans with gold and silver threads, this landmark building similarly uses fluid lines to connect the cultural center, the new central business district, the riverside park, and Jiangxinzhou Island in sequence.
The facades of the towers adopt a trapezoidal framework, maximizing the length of floor plates facing the Yangtze River and the double-decker elevators (composed of small escalators), thereby increasing the planning efficiency of the core area by 50%. The towers' cross-sections gradually narrow with height, resulting in a floor area efficiency ratio exceeding 70%.
The podium (conference center) of the Nanjing International Youth Cultural Center features a complex, flowing curved form. The above-ground main structure is entirely steel, comprising over 20,000 uniquely sized components, none identical.
From being an architect doubted by many in the industry as merely a "paper architect," to being called the "Queen of Architecture" in a male-dominated field, to now being universally known as the first female architect to win the Pritzker Prize and the designer of countless iconic projects, Zaha always adhered to her own style while continuously exploring new possibilities. She integrated new technologies and materials, infusing ever more creativity into these buildings...
References for Jumbo Huang:
1. Zaha Hadid, Artron Art Website
2. A true and sad piece of news on the eve of April Fools' Day: We suddenly lost Zaha Hadid, Art-Ba-Ba, 2016-04-02
3. Wen Jili jill; images sourced from Zaha Hadid Architects, published by Shanghai Science and Technology Association.
4. Beijing Daxing International Airport, costing 80 billion, completed: The first of the 'New Seven Wonders of the World', Sina Fashion, 2019-02-11
5. Lize SOHO completed and put into use, adding a new landmark to Beijing, People's Daily Online
6. The Works and Thoughts of Zaha Hadid, E-Tower Architecture Website
7. Zaha Hadid awarded the Royal Gold Medal, first female recipient, China Art Website
8. Q Daily, Beijing Core OS Technology Development Co., Ltd., Her architecture and the world we live in...
