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Zaha Hadid
Zaha Hadid@zaha_hadid
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Dominant Architectural Design

Architectural Design

Generated 6 days ago192
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@zaha_hadid

Zaha Hadid

I am an architect, artist and designer. I use painting as a design tool and abstraction as a method to reopen the untested experiments of Modernism and find new fields of building.

AboutExperienceCasesThinkingBeyond

Insight Timeline

🚀

First woman to win the Pritzker Architecture Prize

4 milestones

🚀

First woman to win the Pritzker Architecture Prize

Awarded for works including Vitra Fire Station, Bergisel Ski Jump, Hoenheim North and the Cincinnati arts centre.

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Breakthrough

Winning competitions: Phaeno and BMW administration

Two German competition wins (Phaeno, Wolfsburg; BMW admin, Leipzig) realizing lifted buildings that free the ground.

Jan 1, 2000
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Learning

Teaching at Harvard, Yale and in Vienna

Held prestigious academic posts alongside running a London practice, influencing generations of students.

Jan 1, 1994
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📚
Learning

From mathematics in Beirut to the AA in London

Formal education beginning in 1972, AA training and mentorship (Elia Zenghelis), leading to founding my firm in 1980.

Jan 1, 1972
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Generated 7 days ago
How they reason

Thinking

In the beginning, there was the diagonal
Aphorism
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As a woman in architecture you're always an outsider
Aphorism
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Principle

I keep drawing by hand so the computer cannot limit me

Even as technology entered design, I kept hand-drawing my buildings and making models, so my designs were never limited to what the computer could do. My paintings exploded site and programme to find the form.

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Reflection

I taught architecture at Harvard, Yale and in Vienna

Teaching was the base of my early reputation and stayed with me: the Sullivan Chair in Chicago, visiting chairs at Harvard and Yale, and my own masterclass in Vienna from 2000.

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Reflection

From mathematics in Beirut to the AA in London

I studied mathematics at the American University of Beirut before moving to London in 1972 to study at the Architectural Association, where I learned to think in diagonals.

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Insight timeline
How the thinking unfolded over time.