Zaha Hadid is one considered as one of the most important representatives of contemporary architecture and is the most googled architect. Winner of the Pritzker Prize in 2004, the architect, born in Iraq and naturalised English, has designed masterpieces and important buildings all over the world, including, in Italy alone, the MAXXI Museum in Rome – a building which won her the Stirling Prize – and residential buildings in the Citylife district in Milan.
7 architectures designed by Zaha Hadid still under construction
To celebrate the work of the Iraqi Pritzker Prize-winning architect who died tragically six years ago, we have selected some of her most important unfinished projects.
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- La redazione di Domus
- 31 March 2022
She worked as a designer until 31 March 2016, the day of her death at the age of 65, caused by an heart attack. Despite the controversial legal disputes with Patrik Schumacher – Hadid’s long-time business partner – that followed her demise, Zaha Hadid Architects continued the visionary work it began in 1979, the date of its foundation.
But, considering both the long construction times and the difficulties of recent years, some of the projects designed and conceived by the architect are still in progress, and the inauguration of a couple of them is scheduled for this year. Covering more than a decade of ideas, these renderings and site photos show many of the themes and ideas that have made (and will continue to make) Hadid an inspirational figure.
The Central Bank of Iraq was commissioned from Hadid in 2010, however construction of the project only began in late 2018, with completion expected by year-end. The tower will consist of 37 storeys, and aims to become the second tallest building in Iraq after the E1 tower in Erbil. The structural exoskeleton frames the facade, which is itself composed of an alternating pattern of open and closed elements that visually and conceptually mimic the reflection of light from the waves of the river below, reinforcing the dynamism of the design and serving the practical purpose of providing a variety of areas of light and shade within.
Designed in 2011, Beko Masterplan will be a swirling complex of flats, offices and leisure facilities on the abandoned site of an old textile factory in Belgrade, Serbia. Covering some 94,000 square metres, the complex will give the historic Dorcol district a new purpose on a site that is only 500 metres from the city centre but is currently unused and inaccessible. For this project Hadid used the 20th century modernist architecture typical of the capital as design references, combining it with the firm's signature parametric style to design a group of buildings that will seem to flow into one another.
Bee’ah, a Middle Eastern company operating in the field of integrated waste management, commissioned Zaha Hadid Architects in 2014 to design its new headquarters in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates. The new headquarters was developed by weaving environmental considerations into every aspect of the design, using a hierarchical approach to limit the need to consume resources in the first place. The formal composition of the new Bee’ah Headquarters Building responds to the desert setting with a series of intersecting dunes to welcome the Shamal winds, and is developed to ensure that the interior spaces have plenty of natural light and views of the landscape while limiting the amount of glass exposed to the sun.
After an international competition held in 2015, the firm was chosen to build the Danjiang Bridge, an infrastructure designed to cross the Tamsui River in Taiwan. The bridge seeks to minimise its visual impact by using a single concrete pillar to support its 450-metre main span with dedicated road, cycle and pedestrian lanes. Designed in collaboration with Sinotech Engineering Consultants and Leonhardt, Andrä and Partner, the 200-metre high bridge pier was also designed to be as slender as possible and positioned to minimise navigation and disruption to the river bed.
Designed for Forest Green Rovers Football Club in Gloucestershire, England, the structure will be the world's first carbon-neutral stadium made entirely of wood - including the structure, cantilevered roof and slatted cladding. The terraces and floor slab are also made of wood, while a transparent membrane covers the roof. The Eco Park Stadium is part of a larger project designed for citizens and provides 5,000 seats that can increase to 10,000 depending on the club's success, as well as multi-disciplinary facilities, a sports science centre and retail space. The facility will produce renewable energy on site, confirming its sustainable approach.
A roof modelled on the patterns of migratory birds will protect the four wings of the Zhuhai Jinwan Civic Art Centre being developed by Zaha Hadid Architects in southern China. The cultural building, which is under construction in Zhuhai's Jinwan district, will be built within a lake and will incorporate a theatre, a multifunctional hall, a science centre and an art museum. These four venues will be arranged symmetrically around a central plaza, which will serve as a shared outdoor foyer. The roof will also overlook each of the four wings, providing solar shading for their facades, which will be made of double-insulated glass. Once completed, the Zhuhai Jinwan Civic Art Centre will measure 170 metres wide and 270 metres long, from north to south.
In Melbourne, Zaha Hadid Architects has designed a 64-metre apartment building with facades covered by angular balconies and a roof with swimming pools. The 19-storey tower called The Mayfair will be located on St Kilda Road, which connects the St Kilda district with the central business district. After carefully studying the site and determining the architectural geometries of the building, the firm used an optimisation algorithm to identify similarities in form in the façade. this process led to more cost-effective measures to achieve the desired complex design, while minimising the number of different facade panels.