Zaha Hadid Influence On American Architecture

Zaha Hadid is one of the most recognized architects in the world. She is the first female architect to receive the prestigious Pritzker Architecture Prize - "the Nobel Prize of architecture". Born on 31 October 1950, she grew up in one of Baghdad's first Bauhaus-inspired buildings during an era in which ‘modernism suggested glamour and progressive thinking’ in the Middle East. During her childhood days, Iraq was a liberal, secular, western-focused country with a fast-growing economy that flourished until the Ba’ath party took power in 1963. Hadid’s father was a politician, economist and industrialist. She saw no reason why she should not be equally ambitious and so after convent school in Baghdad and Switzerland, and a degree in mathematics at the American University in Beirut, Hadid enrolled at the Architectural Association in London in 1972. In 1980, she established her own London-based practice.

She has completed more than 30 years’ of experience working on almost a thousand projects all over the world, which is a landmark on today’s architecture scene, with imposing projects conveying a sense of lightness, flexibility and simplicity thanks to skilful use of a variety of materials like glass, plastic, titanium plates, steel