Zaha Hadid. 1950. The Explosion Reforming Space: Philip Jodidio

Zaha Hadid is a wildly controversial architect, who for many years built almost nothing, despite her designs winning prizes and critical acclaim. Some even said her work was unbuildable. Yet over the past decade she has completed numerous structures including the Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art in Cincinnati (which the "New York Times" called "the most important new building in America since the Cold War"), the Phaeno Science Center in Wolfsburg, Germany, and the Central Building of the new BMW Assembly Plant in Leipzig. Today, Hadid is firmly established among the elite of world architecture, her audacious and futuristic designs having catapulted her to international fame.