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ANN feature: Zaha. A special issue: I didn’t know Zaha Hadid. We met once - in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, of all places. My encounter with her left an indelible impression. By Kristen Richards- ArchNewsNow.com |
Hugh Pearman (June 4, 2006): Iraqitect: Zaha Hadid: Whatever you think an architect looks like, whatever you think an architect does...disabuse yourselves of those notions. And consider instead...the most extraordinary success story that this notoriously volatile profession has ever produced...That’s ZAHA - a life lived in capital letters. (The Sunday Times Magazine)- HughPearman.com (UK) |
Michael Kimmelman: Zaha Hadid, Groundbreaking Architect: She was not just a rock star and a designer of spectacles. She also liberated architectural geometry...Inevitably, she stirred nearly as much controversy as she won admiration...“She was a pioneer.” She was. For women, for what cities can aspire to build and for the art of architecture.- New York Times |
Paul Goldberger: The Social Art of Zaha Hadid, Architecture’s Most Engaging Presence: She reveled in her status as an architectural icon...paving the way for other women to follow. But her goal was always to get to a point where she would be thought of as an architect first...[her] buildings...every one of them seems far more rare and precious now than it did even yesterday, when there was the possibility of an endless number of them to look forward to.- Vanity Fair |
Justin Davidson: Zaha Hadid, Visionary Architect: ...who designed buildings that could inspire awe and derision but never indifference...we’re left with a trove of middle-period Hadids and questions about what the next chapter might have brought...She wanted its impact to be physiological and psychological - to make people happy and excited and, if necessary, enraged.- New York Magazine |
Christopher Hawthorne: A critic's take on the power of Zaha Hadid: The degree to which Hadid's legacy will rest on how powerfully she smashed architecture's glass ceiling is a complicated question...Still, she was a groundbreaking figure for her career path as well as for the singular quality of her buildings, and she changed the power dynamics of a profession that desperately needed to evolve - and that desperately needs to keep doing so.- Los Angeles Times |
Oliver Wainwright: Zaha Hadid: creator of ambitious wonders - and a fair share of blunders: In her best buildings the laws of physics appear suspended, while other designs struggle when forced to meet reality: Unparalleled queen of the curve and conjuror of sinuous, billowing forms...But her feted starchitect status wasn’t easily won...The world of architecture would certainly have been more dull without her.- Guardian (UK) |
Rowan Moore: Zaha Hadid, 1950-2016: an appreciation: The Observer’s architecture critic, who himself worked with Hadid, pays tribute to her provocative and always uncompromising talent: ...in her person and her work, one feeling that Hadid rarely elicited was indifference.- Observer (UK) |
Edwin Heathcote: Zaha Hadid, architect, 1950-2016: A visionary who invented an entirely new architecture: ...was always inevitably billed as the “greatest female architect” but very few men - if any - could match the distinctiveness of her style, the sculptural brilliance of her architecture or the sheer force of her character.- Financial Times (UK) |
Joseph Giovannini: Zaha Hadid, Friend: the wonderful force of nature known as Zaha Hadid...An architect can never really design outside her temperament and character, and Zaha, as a person, was not afraid of conflict and the unexpected consequences of collision...her buildings were a portrait of Zaha through and through: complex, detailed, sweeping, confident, disciplined, wild.- Architect Magazine |
Aaron Betsky: Zaha Hadid, 1950-2016: Remembering early drawings...her journey into the realm of spatial continuity: I hope and trust that we will remember her not as a diva or as imperious, but as somebody who was forceful, clear, and able to pursue her vision despite the many obstacles that stood in her way. Translating her kind of architecture into built form took a heroic effort that she labored at all her life.- Architect Magazine |
James S. Russell: Blunt-Spoken Zaha Hadid Wins over Critics in Death: [She] was indomitable, tough, blunt, and pugnacious...For these reasons I was surprised at the beautiful outpouring of grief and praise this week...A much softer side of Zaha is now emerging...I wonder, is it safe to acknowledge her greatness now that her irascible self is no longer around to prick architecture’s thinning gentility?- JamesSRussell.net |
Philip Kennicott: Zaha Hadid always seemed unstoppable, but she left a mixed legacy: ...a trailblazer and an imperious maverick who didn’t suffer fools gladly...If it takes decades to assess her legacy, it may take just as long to disentangle her work and the controversies that dogged her career from the sincere admiration many felt for her astonishing success in a male-dominated environment...Few architects of her stature, importance and influence leave the scene with so much unresolved.- Washington Post |
Amanda Baillieu: Zaha was always a difficult person to deal with: Zaha Hadid...deserves to be recognised as one of architecture's greats. But she was also difficult, even when you were on her side...Step into one of her best buildings, and you feel anything is possible.- Dezeen |
Ellis Woodman: Zaha Hadid: a truly fearsome architect: The gravity-defying visionary...revelled in the spectacular and the controversial...I struggle to think of her as a great architect, but undoubtedly she was among the most emblematic and influential of her time.- Telegraph (UK) |
Caroline Roux: The Zaha Hadid I knew: With the sad news of the renowned architect's death, Roux remembers a formidable but fun personality who changed the shape of architecture forever: ...her influence can hardly be overplayed, neither the fact that she left behind the epithet “female” a while back.- Telegraph (UK) |
Mark Lamster: Remembering Zaha Hadid: the world’s most famous (and controversial) female architect: ...the nature of her legacy remains an open question...it is hard to imagine a “School of Hadid” developing in her absence...Sustainability, contextualism, modesty, resilience, craft - these are not attributes one associates with Hadid or her work, though they define architecture in the present day.- Dallas Morning News |
Julie Lasky: Zaha Hadid: Unrepentant Diva, Yes, But Also a Leader in Full Bloom: ...being eulogized for blazing a trail for her gender, but demographics should have nothing to do with it. She was a model for all architects...Intentionally or not, she rode the third wave of feminism, asserting her power and sensuality not as a political gesture but as a basic human right and taking twice as many knocks for it as the male divas in her field.- Artinfo |
Alexander Nazaryan: Zaha Hadid’s Complex Legacy: The brilliant architect wanted immunity from the political implications of her work: ...evaluations of Hadid’s career will also have to grapple with something less seemly: her occasional denial that there were any ethical implications to her projects...[her] legacy reminds us that genius does not operate in a dustless ether of abstractions. It matters where the buildings are built, as well as who builds them.- Newsweek |
Ian Volner: In Memoriam: Zaha Hadid: Love her or hate her, her forceful personality and visually hyperactive buildings have forever changed the way we think about our cities: Institutions like the Guggenheim...proved that her work had broad appeal. The masses did the rest, conflating her exotic buildings with her personal exoticism - as they perceived it - to make Hadid...among the first to receive the ill-starred “starchitect” monicker.- Travel + Leisure |
Anne Quito: The devastating loss of Zaha Hadid for women in architecture: You may not always like her aesthetic, her candor or the politics of her clients, but Zaha Hadid...has left a dark hole in the world of architecture...A role model, but never a mold...For many rising female architects, losing Hadid is like seeing a beacon in the field extinguished.- Quartz |
Yasmin Shariff/Dennis Sharp Architects: For Muslims and women, Zaha Hadid was a shining torch: Zaha was an outsider and upfront about the unfair treatment she experienced: Jealousy and prejudice failed to bar her way, but it took its toll. Very few people realise the misogynistic, racist and anti-architect environment she had to navigate...a travesty that she had to pay the price of discrimination in a profession that should know better.- Guardian (UK) |
Duo Dickinson: Death & Architecture: Zaha Hadid has left a world she was not willing to be confined by: The idiosyncrasies of Hadid’s brand of "sculptitecture” may fade from white to black in her absence...are our buildings a living legacy, or just a three dimensional resume?- Common Edge |
John Seabrook: Postscript: Zaha Hadid, 1950-2016: I have never known anyone whose reputation provoked more terror yet whose actual presence was more fun...Why did every second article attach “diva” to her name? Isn’t every architect a diva? Truly, it was because Hadid was a woman who had dared to enter a man’s world, and took no shit from anybody, though plenty was offered.- New Yorker |
Tegan Bukowski: Zaha Hadid: More Than a ‘Female Architect’: The focus on the architect’s gender obscures her real achievements: I lost a mentor and professional hero, and the world lost one of its leading form makers...It’s an irreplaceable loss, not just for those of us in her studio, but for an entire generation of architects - men and women alike.- New York Times |
Kriston Capps: Remembering Zaha Hadid: For better and for worse, Hadid was the world’s first woman starchitect: More than any other architect’s work, her curvilinear designs and laser-sleek geometry marked the transition from the 20th to the 21st century...never strayed from a path of elegance, focus, and an unyielding unwillingness to compromise.- CityLab (formerly The Atlantic Cities) |
Randy Kennedy and Robin Pogrebin: Female Architects on the Significance of Zaha Hadid: ...the sense of loss...has been most pronounced among female architects, who saw Hadid as a rare beacon of hope for their own success in a male-dominated field and a barometer of its continuing sexism.- New York Times |
Frank Gehry Remembers Zaha Hadid, Who ‘Found Her Niche and Went With It’: “She created a language that’s unique to her”: From the beginning, Gehry says “she was one of the guys” in the notoriously male-dominated architecture community. “[That’s] sexist in its own way I suppose. I don’t mean it that way."- Time Magazine |
Peter Cook’s Obituary of Zaha Hadid: Zaha : the Great Light extinguished...IMMENSE talent.
Such that it either inspired, bewildered, or caused deep jealousy...we are now berift of that most precious and mysterious quality : power through inspiration and talent plus bags of personality that rendered both of them as beacons of hope for architecture. ‘Sticking to one’s guns’ is an amazing gift.- The Architect's Newspaper |
Jesse Dorris: From Design to Gender Expectations, Zaha Hadid Never Stopped Trying to Reshape Reality: Despite almost 40 years in the business, it felt like she was only getting started. Or perhaps better: that the world was only just getting started with her. Hadid was so far ahead of the curve that it took decades for the world to catch up to her.- Slate |
Jing Zhang: Remembering Zaha Hadid: a candid, whip-sharp and passionate creative force: ...her appreciation of the cultural complexities facing developing countries shone through...and her eagerness to be part of it...On top of all this...whether willingly or not, [she] became a voice for fellow Arabs and women in the fields of design and architecture...because of her capacity to surprise and ability to smash through lazy stereotypes.- South China Morning Post |
