The architect Zaha Hadid made headlines today when she hung up on BBC presenter Sarah Montague on this morning's Today programme in the middle of a tetchy interview. It's not the first time Hadid has provoked controversy. Her uncompromising building designs have always stirred a fierce backlash, igniting debate about the aesthetic merit of 'starchitecture'. Yet Hadid has just been awarded the 2016 Riba Royal Gold Medal, a highly prestigious accolade for architects, and she remains one of the most sought-after architects in the world for her experimental swooping architecture.
Here’s five times her work got her into hot water.
Here’s five times her work got her into hot water.
Not Kool, Koolhaas
When Dutch architect (and Hadid’s professor) Rem Koolhaas asked Hadid to join the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA), Hadid told him she would only join as a partner. Koolhaas replied that he would accept this as long as she was an "obedient partner," Hadid responded "no, I am not going to be an obedient partner." In Hadid’s words, "that was the end of my partnership." However, Hadid did join the OMA in 1977 and with Koolhaus and other architects pitched a project to an architectural design competition for a new Dutch parliament building in the Hague in 1978, which was one of 10 prize winners.Turtle or toilet seat?
Hadid’s plans for Tokyo’s 2020 stadium were scrapped following fierce criticism from the Japanese public and Japanese architects who claimed it was too large and expensive. Architect Arata Isozaki likened it to "a dull slow form, like a turtle waiting for Japan to sink so that it can swim away," while others compared the stadium to a toilet seat and a bicycle helmet. Hadid described the complaints as "embarrassing," and called those who protested "hyprocrites" who "don’t want a foreigner to build in Tokyo for a national stadium" but "all have work abroad." “It’s a very serious story. It’s a scandal," Hadid told Today this morning. "We won this competition three years ago, it was an international competition entered by many Japanese architects and we won it.”Travails in Wales
In 1995, Hadid’s designs for the Cardiff Bay Opera House were rejected by what the British council called "noisy opposition from local lobbyists, particularly Cardiff politicians wary of highbrow architecture being ‘imposed’ on a Welsh city by London." Hadid’s plans were thrown out but many lamented the loss of the building. Jonathan Glancey, writing in the Guardian, said "it would have become the most radical and compelling building in Britain" had it not been for "narrow minded politicians" and "assorted dullards" holding it back. Hadid said she met with "resistance and prejudice" because she was a "foreigner," and went on to use the same plans to build the renowned Guangzhou Opera House in China, where it was a resounding success. The New York Times described it as "the most alluring opera house built anywhere in the world in decades."
Great design or "grand project?"
The sinuous curves of the Heydar Alivev Center in Azerbaijan (below) won Hadid the Design Museum Design of the Year of Award, making her the first woman to win the competition’s top prize. While the building was described as "intoxicatingly beautiful" by a judge on the panel, her win came under fire as it emerged that people had been evicted from almost 250 homes to make space for Hadid’s building. Architecture critic Rowan Moore called the building "not so different from the colossal cultural palaces long beloved of Soviet and similar regimes." Hadid’s practice said the project's contractor was internationally accredited by SGS (Société Générale de Surveillance), the world’s leading inspection and verification company for businesses.
