Zaha Hadid was born in 1950, in Bagdad, Iraq. She studied architecture at the Architectural Association from 1972 and was awarded the Diploma Prize in 1977. She then became a partner of the Office for Metropolitan Architecture, taught at the AA with OMA collaborators Rem Koolhaas and Elia Zenghelis, and later led her own studio at the AA until 1987. Since then she held the Kenzo Tange Chair at the Graduate School of Design, Harvard University, the Sullivan Chair at the University of Chicago School of Architecture, guest professorships at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste in Hamburg, the Knolton School of Architecture, Ohio and the Masters Studio at Columbia University, New York. She was the Eero Saarinen Visiting Professor of Architectural Design for the Spring Semester 2002 at Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut. In addition, she was made Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and Fellow of the American Institute of Architecture. She is currently Professor at the University of Applied Arts, Vienna.

Zaha Hadid is an architect who consistently pushes the boundaries of architecture and urban design. Her work experiments with spatial quality, extending and intensifying existing landscapes in the pursuit of a visionary aesthetic that encompasses all fields of design, ranging from urban scale through to products, interiors and furniture. Best known for her seminal built works (Vitra Fire Station, Land Fomation-One and the Strasbourg Car Park & Terminus Station) her central concerns involve a simultaneous engagement in practice, teaching and research.

Zaha Hadid continues to live and work in London, England.

KultureFlash Info:
Zaha Hadid Essay Page
Zaha Hadid News Page

Links:
Zaha Hadid website
Award for the EU Prize for Contemporary Architecture (van der Rohe Award 2003)
Guardian "Look At What I've Built" arcticle (19/06/03)
Guardian "Master Builder" article (03/02/03)
Observer "Space Is Her Place" article (02/02/03)
designboom on Zaha Hadid
Interview
Vitra Fire Station, Weil am Rhein, Germany (1991-93)
Images of the Bergisel Ski-Jump, Innsbruck, Austria (1999-02)
CAC, Cincinnati, USA, web cam and virtual tours
Wolfsburg Science Center, Germany, web cam
A New World Trade Center exhibition at Max Protetch, New York, USA (2001-02)
Zaha Hadid exhibition at the Contemporary Arts Center of Rome, Italy (2002)
Latent Utopias exhibition in Graz, Austria -- curated by Zaha Hadid (2002-03)
Price Tower Arts Center, Oklahoma, USA (2002-06)
Museum of European and Mediterranean Civilizations, Marseille, France (2002-08)