Zaha Hadid 1950-2016

One of the world’s great architects has passed away.

It was a shock this morning when we received an email from the office of Zaha Hadid Architects informing us that their principal, the great Zaha Hadid, had passed away early this morning. Though she was 65 she truly seemed someone who was in the very prime of her career, with each commission bigger and bolder than the next. In 2004 she was a newly minted Pritzker Prize winner (the first women so honoured) when she partnered with Kasian Architecture to submit a design for the competition for Edmonton’s Alberta Art Gallery. Even at the time it was a big deal that an architect of her stature was participating and of the finalists (Arthur Erickson and Will Alsop included) she was the only one that incorporated the existing building into a sublime creation of stacking volumes.Alas it wasn’t to be—Los Angeles’ Randall Stout won with design that echoed his old boss, Frank Gehry and Hadid went on to a series of increasingly high profile buildings and Edmonton was left wondering what might have been. For a full obituary on Zaha Hadid click here.