Zaha Hadid: Making Utopia a Reality in Architecture

"Utopia: n .an impractical idealistic scheme for social and political reform" - The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

For over twenty years the Iraqi-born, English educated architect Zaha Hadid has symbolized the vanguard of contemporary architecture. She has pushed back the boundaries of built form to forge a highly individualist architectonic language that is at once thrillingly dynamic and intensely thoughtful, and as a result now has an enormous following of students, practitioners and builders. Most people recognize her hand through the striking drawings and paintings that represent her work, but the beauty of her illustrations tend to obscure the fact that she is an architect who builds, due to their unorthodox nature.

Her works are those of wonder and amazement at first sight, they tend to enhance the environments in which they are erected by not just standing out but also merging with the other structures around to form sort of an extension of the site, they question the mind of any observer as to if the ideas can be feasible in the world of today, if they can replace the conventional building designs and especially if they are possible to build. As one of the pioneers of "deconstructivism" which is a recent development in architecture that is characterized by drawings, models and structures that emphasize simultaneity and complexity in both the spaces and forms, she has contributed a great deal by creating theoretical proposals through paintings drawings, and models. Utopia, which is a word that symbolizes an ideal situation that seems almost impractical, impossible to implement is the best way to describe most of her works; Utopian Architecture as it is now called are building d...

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...ike they sprout from the ground or are polished pieces of stone that have arms that sprawl out and are rooted in the earth where they belong. This is what some buildings of today lack; the ability to look like they where made to belong to the site on which they were built and fortunately for Zaha this is where she has prevailed. Being able to create that equilibrium between a building, its inhabitants and the beauty of nature that surrounds us all is the utopia her designs tend to achieve. Her works attract awe and amazement because of how well she is able to capture fluidity and use it to the best of her advantage. She is truly a deconstructivist and an asset to the architectural world. Hopefully, more deconstructive architects will rise and emulate or even improve on Zaha's work so that someday we all will be living in a world of utopian structures (Godwilling).