Dame Zaha Mohammad Hadid was an Iraqi-British architect, artist and designer, recognized as a major figure in architecture of the late-20th and early-21st centuries. Born in Baghdad, Iraq, Hadid studied mathematics as an undergraduate and then enrolled at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in 1972. In search of an alternative system to traditional architectural drawing, and influenced by Suprematism and the Russian avant-garde, Hadid adopted painting as a design tool and abstraction as an investigative principle to "reinvestigate the aborted and untested experiments of Modernism [...] to unveil new fields of building."
The year 2007 in architecture involved some significant architectural events and new buildings.
Sir Peter Cook is an English architect, lecturer and writer on architectural subjects. He was a founder of Archigram, and was knighted in 2007 by the Queen for his services to architecture and teaching. He is also a Royal Academician and a Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres of the French Republic. His achievements with Archigram were recognised by the Royal Institute of British Architects in 2004, when the group was awarded the Royal Gold Medal.
Contemporary architecture is the architecture of the 21st century. No single style is dominant. Contemporary architects work in several different styles, from postmodernism, high-tech architecture and new interpretations of traditional architecture to highly conceptual forms and designs, resembling sculpture on an enormous scale. Some of these styles and approaches make use of very advanced technology and modern building materials, such as tube structures which allow construction of buildings that are taller, lighter and stronger than those in the 20th century, while others prioritize the use of natural and ecological materials like stone, wood and lime. One technology that is common to all forms of contemporary architecture is the use of new techniques of computer-aided design, which allow buildings to be designed and modeled on computers in three dimensions, and constructed with more precision and speed.
The Phæno Science Center is an interactive science center in Wolfsburg, Germany, completed in 2005.
Mark Antony Wigley is a New Zealand-born architect and author based in the United States. From 2004 to 2014, he was the Dean of Columbia University's Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation.
Deconstructivism is a movement of postmodern architecture which appeared in the 1980s. It gives the impression of the fragmentation of the constructed building, commonly characterised by an absence of obvious harmony, continuity, or symmetry. Its name is a portmanteau of Constructivism and "Deconstruction", a form of semiotic analysis developed by the French philosopher Jacques Derrida. Architects whose work is often described as deconstructivist include Zaha Hadid, Peter Eisenman, Frank Gehry, Rem Koolhaas, Daniel Libeskind, Bernard Tschumi, and Coop Himmelb(l)au.
The year 2009 in architecture involved some significant architectural events and new buildings.
Lois Rosenthal was an American author, publisher, arts & humanities philanthropist, and community volunteer. She was based in Cincinnati, Ohio. She served on the boards of the Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, Freestore Foodbank, Art Links, Cincinnati Museum Center, and the Mercantile Library of Cincinnati. She was known for her hands-on philosophy of service in her community and was named Enquirer Woman of the Year in 1999 by The Cincinnati Enquirer.
Aaron Betsky, born 1958 in Missoula, Montana, is an American critic on art, architecture and design. He was the director of Virginia Tech's School of Architecture + Design until early 2022.
The Heydar Aliyev Center is a 57,500 m2 (619,000 sq ft) building complex in Baku, Azerbaijan designed by Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid and noted for its distinctive architecture and flowing, curved style that eschews sharp angles. The center is named after Heydar Aliyev (1923–2003), the first secretary of Soviet Azerbaijan from 1969 to 1982, and president of Azerbaijan Republic from October 1993 to October 2003.
Vilnius Guggenheim Hermitage Museum was a proposed art museum in the city of Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania. On April 8, 2008, an international jury named Zaha Hadid, a British-Iraqi architect, the winner of the international design competition for the museum. The museum was initially scheduled to open in 2011. Later, it was announced, that museum was scheduled to open in 2013. However, the project was postponed due to alleged illegal channeling of funds to the Jonas Mekas Arts Center and has been under investigation since 2010. The museum project, as of March 2012, was reported as having regained support, including that of the Vilnius mayor, Arturas Zuokas, even though the embezzlement inquiry was still ongoing.
MAXXI is a national museum of contemporary art and architecture in the Flaminio neighborhood of Rome, Italy. The museum is managed by a foundation created by the Italian ministry of cultural heritage. The building was designed by Zaha Hadid, and won the Stirling Prize of the Royal Institute of British Architects in 2010.
The Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum, is a contemporary art museum at Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan. It opened on November 10, 2012.
Zaha Hadid Architects is a British architecture and design firm founded by Zaha Hadid (1950–2016), with its main office situated in Clerkenwell, London. After the death of "starchitect" Hadid, Patrik Schumacher became head of the firm, at the time with a staff of 400 with 36 projects across 21 countries.
The Formica Building is a mixed-use building in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Peter Noever is an Austrian designer and curator–at–large of art, architecture and media. From 1986 to 2011 he was the artistic director and CEO of MAK—Austrian Museum of Applied Arts and Contemporary Art in Vienna.
The year 2015 in architecture involved some significant architectural events and new buildings.
The Perfect Moment was the most comprehensive retrospective of works by New York photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. The show spanned twenty-five years of his career, featuring celebrity portraits, self-portraits, interracial figure studies, floral still lifes, homoerotic images, and collages. The exhibition, organized by Janet Kardon of the Institute of Contemporary Arts in Philadelphia, opened in the winter of 1988 just months before Mapplethorpe's death from AIDS complications on March 9, 1989. On tour, in the summer of 1989, the exhibition became the centerpiece of a controversy concerning federal funding of the arts and censorship.
The Changsha Meixihu International Culture and Arts Centre is a cultural complex located in the Meixihu subdistrict of Changsha, Hunan, China. It was completed in 2019. The complex was designed by British architectural firm Zaha Hadid Architects.
