“I have always been interested in the concept of fragmentation, abstraction and explosion, in de-constructing ideas of repetitiveness and mass production. My work first engaged with the early Russian avant-garde; in particular, the work of Kasimir Malevich – he was an early influence for me as a representative of the modern avant-garde intersection between art and design.” Zaha Hadid

Dame Zaha Mohammad Hadid was an Iraqi-born British architect. Hadid was born on 31 October 1950 in Baghdad, Iraq.

In 1997 she graduated from American University of Beirut and then starting to work for her former professors, Koolhaas and Zenghelis, at the Office for Metropolitan Architecture, in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Hadid established her own London-based firm in 1979.

Then she began teaching in universities such as Harvard Graduate School of Design, Cambridge University, the University of Chicago and Her reputation for a while rested largely upon her teaching and the imaginative and colourful paintings she made of her proposed buildings, because no one would pay for her projects.

This exhibition at Serpentine Sackler Gallery was mainly about her early working days and showing her extraordinary talent even back then.

In 1988 she was chosen to show her drawings and paintings as one of six architects chosen to participate in the exhibition “Deconstructivism in Architecture” curated by Philip Johnson and Mark Wigley at New York’s Museum of Modern Art. This was a start for her international reputation.

In 2004 she became the first woman to be awarded the Pritzker Architecture Prize.

The BRIT Awards 2017 with Mastercard confirm that the 2017 statue was designed by Zaha Hadid.

Photography by Art Road