Podcast #48: Zaha Hadid

In our last episode of 2021, The DLS team of Susan Stone, Katy Derbyshire, and Florian Duijsens all come together to clink glasses of bubbly, and discuss our favorite Dead Lady news of the year.

Plus, DLS Producer and journalist Susan Stone presents our featured Dead Lady, architect Zaha Hadid.  Born in Baghdad, Zaha started her creative life early, designing her own clothes and furniture at the age of 7 or 8.  She studied at, then taught at, the Architectural Association School in London, where she honed her boundary-breaking skills and unmatchable style.

Both life and her designs threw a series of curves her way, but she excelled and inspired, becoming the first woman to with the Pritzker Architecture Prize, considered the Nobel Prize for architecture, as well as many more accolades and contracts, eventually designing everything from schools to shoes. Along the way she faced notable sexism and racism as one of few women and Arabs in the field. But she wowed critics, and created some of the most incredible buildings the world has ever seen before her death at the age of 65 in 2016.

Also available on Spotify, Apple PodcastsRadioPublic, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, and Acast.

You can download the transcript, created by Annie Musgrove, here.

Show notes:

Zaha looking fab
Zaha with Ron Arad in the hectic 1970s
Richard Gere, natch
Zaha’s gravity-defying design for The Peak, Hong Kong, 1982-83
Patrik Schumacher aka Potato aka Fluffy aka Cappucino
Vitra Fire Station, Weil am Rhein, Germany,  1990-93
The ill-fated (but multi-awardwinning) design for Cardiff’s Bay Opera House
She designed the sharp “suitcase-sized” sets for the Pet Shop Boys’ Nightlife tour, 1999-2000
…and for the Metapolis Ballet
Her first museum: the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati
In 2004, she was the first woman to win the Pritzker Prize (and thank her colleagues)
The Stirling Prize-winning Evelyn Grace Academy in Brixton, 2006-2010
London Aquatics Center, 2011
Dame Zaha Hadid, 2012
All the lewks!
One of her last designs, for the Central Bank of Iraq

And this book of conversations with Zaha by the ubiquitous Hans Ulrich Obrist

As for our final round-up, NPR has more more on Josephine’s Baker‘s induction into the Pantheon.

Anna May Wong‘s shiny new quarter

And English Heritage has more on Caroline Norton and Ellen Craft, recent blue-plaque honorees!

Our theme music is “Little Lily Swing” by Tri-Tachyon.

Thanks for listening! We’ll be back with a new episode next month. And don’t forget, we have a Patreon! Thanks to all of our current supporters! Please consider supporting our transcripts project and our ongoing work: www.patreon.com/deadladiesshowpodcast
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