Track3_9

Track 3 .9

Zaha Hadid, whose name can be translated from Arabic as Glorious, was born on 31 October 1950.

She is known as one of the brightest architects of our time.

She refused to see things in an ordinary way, and because of this, her projects were called Impossible to Build and Insane.

However, she became the woman that totally altered the world of architecture.

We hope that her story will motivate everyone to try and implement their most amazing ideas.

This architecture superstar was born into an upper -class Iraqi family,

so she didn't have this classic story about a difficult childhood.

In the beginning, Zaha wanted to become a mathematician,

and even studied science at the American University of Beirut.

But then, she just realized that she really loved shapes, not numbers,

and she shifted her concentration to architecture.

Soon after that, Hadid went to London, where she met the famous Dutch architect, Rem Koolhouse.

He noticed the talent of Zaha right away and became her mentor.

The mentor called Zaha a planet in her own orbit.

After Hadid finished the university, Koolhouse invited the young Hadid to work for his bureau in Rotterdam.

After three years of collaboration, Zaha decided that she was ready to start her own company,

and so she returned to London.

When she dived into the world of architecture, Hadid worked on a lot of projects,

but they were criticized over and over again.

Despite the amazing number of her ideas, before the beginning of the 90s,

not a single building based on her designs was built.

Zaha's projects won huge international competitions, but they remained only on paper

because they were believed to be insane, too impossible to actually build.

All that Zaha could do was to continue to work just in case.

So, for 17 years, she was called a paper architect, but in 1982, it seemed that she got lucky.

One of Hadid's projects was approved, a sports club in the mountains of Hong Kong,

but one year later, the customer cancelled the construction, and the project was not built.

Using the money she won in various competitions, Zaha decided to start her own office

that would become a real empire 30 years later.

Zaha didn't give up, and thanks to her persistence and strong nature,

she continued to create her crazy but beautiful projects.

However, the memorable victory for Hadid came in 2004.

For her project for the London Aquatic Centre, she was awarded the Pritzker Architecture Prize,

which is an Oscar in the world of architecture.

Zaha became the first woman to ever win this award.

After that, Hadid became one of the most popular and trendy architects in the world,

because of her remarkable designs.

Yet, this also had a negative effect on her.

Critics soon started to say that she was too interested in her designs

rather than making her buildings functional.

Also, because her designs were unusual to human eye, they cost a lot of money,

and this was another criticism.

People started to think that spending that much money on such projects was not the smartest idea.

But Hadid denied all these accusations,

and still managed to find customers in China and the Middle East.

Zaha Hadid died at the age of 65 from a heart attack in Miami Clinic,

where she was being treated for bronchitis.

But Hadid's business continues to live thanks to her architecture firm partner, Patrick Schumacher.

We are sure that Zaha Hadid is still very alive and with us.