lrchu – looking outwards – 02

Zaha Hadid was an Iraqi-British architect and also the first woman to receive the Pritzker Prize, one of the highest honors as an architect. Hadid is known for her masterful manipulation of curves and parametricism in her almost other-worldly designs. The Guardian of London even referred to Hadid as the “queen of the curve… who liberated architectural geometry, giving it a whole new expressive identity.”

The Al Wakrah Stadium, designed by Zaha Hadid and Patrik Schumacher for the 2022 FIFA world cup, features an openable roof and cooled seating for all-year soccer play. The form of the building is derived from an abstraction of traditional boats, dhows, which can be found in Al Wakrah’s ports. The stadium not only applies a unique and beautiful form, but also modern solutions to conventional stadium issues like temperature regulation.