Pearls from The Dame!

Zaha Hadid was not just an architect. She was a force of nature — a woman who refused to be contained by convention, geography, or the expectations of an industry that wasn't built for her.

Born in Baghdad in 1950, she studied mathematics before turning to architecture — a combination that would define her entire career. She saw buildings the way a mathematician sees equations: as systems of logic that could be pushed, bent, and reimagined without losing their integrity.

On breaking rules

"I don't think that architecture is only about shelter, is only about a very simple enclosure. It should be able to excite you, to calm you, to make you think." — Zaha Hadid

This is the first pearl. Architecture — and by extension, all design — is not just functional. It is emotional. It is political. It is a statement about what we believe the world could be.

On persistence

Hadid spent years being called "the paper architect" — someone whose designs were too radical to build. She was passed over for commissions she had won. She was dismissed, doubted, and underestimated.

And then she built the MAXXI in Rome. The Heydar Aliyev Centre in Baku. The London Aquatics Centre. One by one, the impossible became real.

The second pearl: the gap between vision and execution is not a sign of failure. It is the terrain where mastery is built.

On identity

Hadid navigated being a woman, an Arab, and an outsider in a field dominated by Western men. She never pretended otherwise. She wore it as armour and as art.

"I don't like the word 'iconic' — it's overused. I prefer 'seminal'. Something that opens up new possibilities."

The third pearl: know the difference between being recognised and being understood. Aim for the latter.

What Łofnheim takes from The Dame

At Łofnheim, we think about Zaha often. Not because we build buildings, but because she understood something fundamental about the relationship between rigour and imagination — that they are not opposites. They are partners.

The most powerful work happens at that intersection. Always.