Name: Zaha Hadid

Style: Deconstructivism (breaking architecture, displacement and distortion, leaving the vertical
and the horizontal, using rotations on small, sharp angles, breaks up structures apparent chaos)

INTRODUCTION
Zaha Hadid's early biography

 Anyone who has passed the London Olympic Aquatic Centre would recognize the stamp
of Zaha Hadid’s style. The Iraqi-born British architect is known for being a rare woman
on a male-dominated podium. Her accolades included a Royal Gold Medal for
architecture – the first one to be awarded to a woman in its 167-year history – and two
Starling Prizes, to name just a couple.
 Zaha Hadid’s style was born early in her career, as she planned a famous design for The
Peak, in Hong Kong. It was to be a deconstructed, horizontal skyscraper, turning heads
in the architecture world. Unfortunately, the concept – and most of her radical '80s and
early '90s designs – including the Kurfürstendamm in Berlin and the Düsseldorf Art and
Media Centre, were never brought to life. They were considered too avant-garde to be
taken beyond sketches, and she started to gain a reputation as a "paper architect".

Zaha Hadid’s later work

 Her public buildings are often described as dynamic, as if they're a freeze-frame of an
action shot. Zaha Hadid's style embraces striking lines, sometimes bold with expressive
curves; other times brutalist in essence. Her first commissioned work was the Vitra Fire
Station in 1994, followed shortly by the geometric shape of the Contemporary Arts
Centre in Cincinnati and the alien-esque concrete structure of the Phaeno Science Centre
in Wolfsburg, Germany. More recent productions include the Evelyn Grace Academy in
Brixton, which won her the 2011 Stirling Prize, and the vividly expressive Heydar Aliyev
Center in Baku, Azerbaijan.
 Her firm, established in 2006, has a wide portfolio beyond the walls of architecture
including accessories, jewelry, interiors, exhibition and set design. She’s also created
limited-edition furniture fit for a truly luxury lifestyle, like the well-loved Le-a Table,
born of a collaboration between Zaha Hadid Design and Leblon Delienne. The sculptural
fiberglass coffee table was inspired by Princess Leia's iconic hairstyle in the Star Wars
film franchise.
 DESIGN PHILOSOPHY

 Hadid stated that her architectural designs were not intended as a personal stamp on the
world, or an act of self-indulgence. Rather, addressing 21st-century challenges and
opportunities is the cornerstone to Zaha Hadid’s style and creations.
 Architecture, she claimed, "must contribute to society's progress and ultimately to our
individual and collective wellbeing." The buildings born of her vision and the collective
genius of her firm Zaha Hadid Architects, may sometimes seem fantastical, triumphant
and even a bit loud, but they all stem from architecture’s base function – to facilitate and
even perform everyday life.
 This successful architect is a polarizing figure, with outspoken suggestions to
pedestrianize vast swathes of London, a plan which aims to alleviate problems such as
pollution and road safety. Plans by Zaha Hadid Architects for two soaring towers in
Vauxhall have also had their fair share of opposition, as well as support.
 Whether it's for her more controversial designs, her unrealized dreams or her
masterpieces which have come to fruition, Zaha Hadid’s style is rightly globally
recognized, and she has obtained legendary status since her death in March 2016. In the
following, we will introduce you in more detail to some of her best-known creations.
 Her style is Deconstructivism (breaking architecture, displacement and distortion, leaving
the vertical and the horizontal, using rotations on small, sharp angles, breaks up structures
apparent chaos)
 DESIGN

 Project: Museum of Art, XXI (MAXXI), Rome, Italy

 Architects: Zaha Hadid Architects
 Area:  27000.0 m²
 Year:  2009
 Concept: gravity-defying, Fragmenta, Revolutionary
 Theme: hadids designs exhibits that a building can float and defy gravity.
 MAXXI stands for ‘Museo nazionale delle arti del XXI secolo’ (National Museum of
21st Century Art). The museum will become the joint home of the MAXXI Arts and
MAXXI Architecture and Italy’s first national museum solely dedicated to contemporary
arts. Zaha Hadid architects, out of 273 candidates, won the architectural competition to
design the building in 1998 with a design that responds to the form and arrangement of
existing industrial buildings on the site.
 The building is a composition of bending oblong tubes, overlapping, intersecting and
piling over each other, resembling a piece of massive transport infrastructure. It acts as a
tie between the geometrical elements already present.
 It is built on the site of old army barracks between the river Tiber and via guido reni, the
Centre is made up of spaces that flow freely and unexpectedly between interior and
exterior, where walls twist to become floors or ceilings. The building absorbs the
landscape structures, dynamizes them and gives them back to the urban environment.
 Zaha Hadid stated: "I see the MAXXI as an immersive urban environment for the
exchange of ideas, feeding the cultural vitality of the city. It’s no longer just a museum,
but an urban cultural center where a dense texture of interior and exterior spaces have
been intertwined and superimposed over one another. It’s an intriguing mixture of
galleries, irrigating a large urban field with linear display surfaces".
 The architecture of MAXXIT wo principle architectural elements characterize the
project the concrete walls that define the exhibition galleries and determine the
interweaving of volumes and the transparent roof that modulates natural light. The
roofing system complies with the highest standards required for museums and is
composed of integrated frames and louvers with devices for filtering sunlight, artificial
light and environmental control.

 Galleries, Walkway and Materials Located around a large full height space which gives
access to the galleries dedicated to permanent collections and temporary exhibitions, the
auditorium, reception services, cafeteria and bookshop.
 Outside, a pedestrian walkway follows the outline of the building, restoring an urban link
that has been blocked for almost a century by the former military barracks in Rome.
 Materials such as glass (roof), steel (stairs) and cement (walls) give the exhibition
spaces a neutral appearance, whilst mobile panels enable curatorial flexibility and variety.

 Sinuous shape The fluid and sinuous shapes, the variety and interweaving of spaces and
the modulated use of natural light lead to a spatial and functional framework of great
complexity, offering constantly changing and unexpected views from within the building
and outdoor spaces.