Hadid. Complete Works 1979–2013

by Philip Jodidio

In 2004, Zaha Hadid became the first woman to win the Pritzker Prize. In the past decade, she has completed a plethora of structures including the Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art in Cincinnati, the Phaeno Science Center in Wolfsburg, Germany and the Central Building of the new BMW Assembly Plant in Leipzig. There is no doubt that Zaha Hadid has joined the élite of world architecture with her recent work, her audacious and futuristic-looking designs having catapulted her to international fame.

Born in Baghdad, Iraq and educated in London, where her practice is based, Hadid has been shaking up the foundations of architecture for over 30 years and is now the subject of a massive TASCHEN monograph. Covering her complete works to date, and all of her exciting new work from Dubai to Guangzhou, this XL tome clearly demonstrates the progression of Hadid s career including not only buildings but also furniture and interior designs with in-depth texts, spectacular photos, and her own drawings. Also included is a special section with translucent vellum paper allowing multiple layers of designs to be viewed at once or separately.

Genres: Architecture, Design, Art

612 pages, Hardcover

First published June 1, 2009

Reviews

[Leonard · Rating 5 out of 5]

I didn't read much if this massive heavy book, but I looked at all the pictures of her architectural designs. Such amazing creativity with large flowing curves and lines. This includes completed works as well as works that are still in the design category. Unfortunately most of her work is outside North American, so it's unusual for people in this country to see them. They remind me for the Spanish architect whose works often resemble birds and I can't think of his name right now.

[Robert Heller · Rating 1 out of 5]

I bought the book because it was a complete retrospective of her work and it was big so I knew the photographs would be large. If it’s only pictures you’re looking for this book is still just a two star. It’s not that the pictures aren’t good. it’s just that there is so little information about what The picture is displaying. It’s hard to know what that space is used for. With the text that is written near the pictures. The font is so small and so thin that you don’t even want to read it. I have 2020 vision and it was difficult to read. On top of that there was so little information given about each picture. They shouldn’t even have bothered writing anything I think if you’re going to purchase a book about an architect and architecture you want to know more about the building process and the materials used and that information doesn’t exist in this book. I didn’t like the set up either the first 25 or 30 pages was all about the history with no pictures to correlate with what is being talked about other than you have to flip through the book to find them this book missed for me. It could’ve been outstanding, the other thing I didn’t like is that they showed future projects that haven’t even been built yet while that is interesting if it’s never been built, it may never be built. I will be looking for another book about Zaha Hadid that goes more into detail about the building process from conception to construction to maintenance on the finished building.

[Ilse · Rating 5 out of 5]

Een prachtig boek! Het formaat van de uitgave zorgt er bovendien voor dat je haast in de werken van Zaha Hadid kan rondlopen. En de wereld van Zaha Hadid is bijzonder verbluffend. Ze weet architectuur en natuurlijke omgeving op een prachtige manier te combineren. Je kan hier gewoon niet onberoerd bij blijven.