Zaha Hadid: Listener Favorite
EPISODE 160
Dame Zaha Hadid born October 31, 1950, died March 31, 2016. She was known as the “Queen of the Curve” for buildings such as the Heydar Aliyev Center in Azerbaijan with its gently sloping and yet zany curves.
She was an Iraqi-born British architect known for her radical deconstructivist designs. In 2004 she became the first woman to be awarded the Pritzker Architecture Prize.
Only rarely does an architect emerge with a philosophy and approach to the art form that influences the direction of the entire field. Such an architect is Zaha Hadid who created and set new boundaries for the art of architecture.
SHOW OUTLINE
A BLOCK
INTRO
About Zaha Hadid
Norman Foster on Zaha
LEADERSHIP
Building the Unbuildable
Making the Most when you Can’t Control Your Destiny & Lack of Women in Architecture
On Teamwork
BUILDINGS
A Look Back on Her Work
Cincinnati Contemporary Art Centre
List and discuss some of her most iconic buildings.
B BLOCK
MENTAL MODELS
Doesn’t Believe in Compromise
The Importance of Teaching
Weakness into a Strength
CLIP LIST
About Zaha Hadid
Interview with Zaha Hadid women in Architecture
Interview with Zaha Hadid contemporary art center
Zaha Hadid’s Architecture and design elements
Zaha Hadid Building the unbuildable
Dame Zaha Hadid in Conversation
Zaha Hadid Different Method Same Outcome
Zaha Hadid Discovering Ideas in Architecture
Zaha Hadid Keep at It!
Norman Foster on Zaha Hadid Extraordinary
Zaha Hadid A Look Back At Her Work
Zaha Hadid Architects
Zaha Hadid Architects Innovation
Zaha Hadid: Listener Favorite
TRANSCRIPT
And welcome to the moonshots podcast. It's episode 160. I'm your co-host Mike Parsons. And as always, I'm joined by the man himself. Mr. Mark Freeland. Good morning. Hey, good morning, Mike. What an exciting show we've got for our listeners today? It's a real joy to revisit this individual. Isn't it?
It is. I think it's safe to say that we've been deep into the moonshot archives. I haven't, we mark that's right today. Listeners, we are bringing you Zaha Hadid, did an individual that we've referenced many maybe even three, many times throughout the last over 100 shows Mike today, episode 160.
We're actually revisiting episode number 50. So 110 episodes ago. And for those of you who don't know, Zaha Hadid a world famous architect, she was born in the early fifties originally hailing from [00:01:00] Baghdad and then ended up moving with her family to the UK and overcame pretty much every sort of challenge you could as an immigrant woman studying to be an architect and then going on to be an entrepreneur and founding her own company.
Oh, and by the way in that journey, she managed to create some of the most epic signature buildings in the history of humankind. This is a lady that deserves our consideration, yeah, she really does. And for those listeners who maybe recognize her name, perhaps you've heard my call myself, reference her on the show.
Maybe you've read her name in articles online, architectural digest, even go and just Google her name and check out the buildings that she's done. Because I think it's fair to say, Mike, that they're brave courageous, creative. I think sometimes we'll recognize a [00:02:00] few of her buildings. Otherwise we'll just be so surprised with what they look like.
They're so original. They and so just on her output alone, she deserves our consideration. We need to ask ourselves, what can we learn from Zahara? But beyond that, this is a woman who's fought the good fight and overcome. What many of us would not even face in a lifetime and she's done it 10 fold, what a remarkable woman.
I noticed that she has so much to teach us through her resilience there, her thinking different that I would say that she is right up there with the likes of Simon Sinek, who so constant referrals cross-references to Zahar throughout the course of our 160 shows. I just stopped talking about this lady.
She's amazing. Yeah. Yeah, you're totally right. I think there's a real lesson that we can [00:03:00] all glean from Zaha. There's a great in insight into how she's essentially a founder splitting her time across multiple disciplines, wearing a number of different hats while always maintaining a level of focus and creativity.
And as you've just said, that resilience and this ability for her to never give up, despite having some unbelievable challenges that you and I wouldn't experience, I think this idea of no compromisation as well as stoicism really does place a write up in the moonshot archive of individuals that we love learning out loud from that.
She does. And I will take it one step further and seeing what we have in store, as we look at the workers, our heart and her thoughts, her ideas, her thinking is that she takes resilience to another level. She is really has a lesson to teach us in that that [00:04:00] common saying, if it doesn't kill you, it only makes you stronger.
She is the David Goggins of architecture. She has so much to give and I'm delighted to return to her work and to her thinking. So without any further ado, let's jump in to the world of Zaha Hadid. Chad Owen, I am ready to rock and roll. Where do we kick this? Yeah. And is that how is Iraqi born?
And she's still got a pretty heavy accent. So some of these clips, Mike, and I'll help put some more context on what she's saying. If you don't have the luxury of going back and re listening to them, but yeah, we've got some really great introductory clips about Zaha and her work in someone that we have heard from before on this show talking about here.
So here's a, here's an introduction to. She's regarded as one of the industry's [00:05:00] best was the first woman to win the Pritzker prize. Architecture's highest honor
and then last 10 years, as we have very, I think ambitious projects by many cities, I think that you became really a way to represent cities. Therefore, the ambition has hygiene. She's an engineer.
Zaha recognized early on that computer could use this drawing to help invent new forms and shapes. What's an extraordinary contribution she has made to architecture. It just really, a space. If you have a concept which could apply to many layers to very small thing, to very much,
maybe one handful of figures like her in the world with that kind of architectural [00:06:00] imagination, that kind of determined drive. And that kind of will to percent the will to persist that is so Zaha. And when I think of how that relates to the founder's journey, or even if you're a corporate executive, like seeing things through.
That's what it really takes. I, Chad, yeah. And this interesting description of her as an engineer and architect and artist, this kind of Renaissance woman archetype, if you will, is very interesting and something that we've seen across, many of the people that we've profiled is that they're not, some of them are singularly focused on one thing that they're doing and others actually split their time and attention and focus in these cross disciplines.
And I think she's definitely someone that has benefited from dabbling in all of those areas. I think what she got known for at first, when she [00:07:00] was in school in the UK was the striking abstractness of many of her drawings and diagrams that to many people there looked more like art than like architectural plans and designs.
And it's really interesting to see how. Design and artistic aesthetic, you can see in all of her buildings because they are so strikingly unique, but then the art, the engineer inside of her to make sure that it that it can withstand the weather and earthquakes and it will actually stand up when you build it.
Yeah. And that's very much this idea of Renaissance thinking of this is multi-discipline approach to the world. And it's certainly, I think was something that the industry and her peers recognized about her. And this next clip that we have is actually from Norman foster, who we featured two shows [00:08:00] ago.
And this is a very this is a wonderful opportunity to hear what her colleagues thought of Zaha. Everybody knows. That was aha was a fantastic architect. And in a way you never take that for granted, but it's a given for me, Sahar was also a very dear friend one, tremendous disappointment is that I was never able to tell him.
And insight from one of her, the very special clients. She had done a house for him, this extraordinary house in the forest in Russia. It was the only house that she'd done. I met this individual by chance at the dinner party. And he was saying, look this is what she [00:09:00] promised. This is what she delivered.
It's an extraordinary resolution of this futuristic image. And the built reality saw the futurist dynamic architect of the future. Yeah, the Zaha, the futurist. It's not, yeah, it's not many times you hear architects referred to as futurists, but I think it's a really fantastic way to think about and understand how she.
Thought about not just how things were built and designed, but the purpose of architecture was really to move forward, how people interacted with space and how cities function. I think that idea of futurism and pushing things beyond where you think that discipline can go [00:10:00] was really what she was driving forward.
And I think is a big, as Norman says, a big reason why she was is owed all of the accolades that, that sh that she got. Yeah. And I think that you have to be so brave to bring in Asher in the new, because there's so much risk. And I think this is what we can learn from. She you can see her almost delighting and the risk of creating something wildly different.
And in fact you mentioned it earlier, like often people would look at her plans and say, that's impossible. If you watch any of the documentaries on her, they'll often bring in the engineers who, particularly in the early days, when she would bring the plans, they would just be like, nah, that can't be done, but you want to build that using what kind of material?
No way. And she was so resilient. She was so like lady Gaga she was [00:11:00] courageous, relentless. And this next clip is, gives us a little bit of insight into her world about how she built the unbuildable in 2004, you became the first woman to win the Pritzker prize, which is like the Oscars of the architectural world.
And the words to introduce you where her architectural career has not been traditional or easy. How would you characterize your journey? I think there was a sort of positive tick in your career. And at the time when I finished school I was very young and I you make a certain decision and the way you go.
But he thought even when I was at school, that there was an kind of an glimpse, then there couldn't be another kind of world and it does what you build. And while I naively or not, I took it that decision to pursue something which required a tremendous amount of research and [00:12:00] hoping for 11 of invention.
And it was very. And I think it was not knowing I'm very accustomed to two women architects w first and within the profession and nature within the field. So that was another difficulty. But also the difficulty was, I was a foreigner I was a foreign and the UK and although I've lived here now, most of my life there so that was another difficulty.
But it was really because of the extremeness of the work. That one had to fight. And of course these fights makes you not necessarily cynical or whatever, and just makes you tougher, and you have certain beliefs and strengths, your beliefs, and I think it was an important, although at the time difficult journey, but was important.
Yeah, absolutely. Cause you know, you're famous for designing these buildings that I'm into others are the stuff of dreams they cannot possibly exist. In [00:13:00] reality, in some even said that your designs were outright on buildable in Hong Kong, actually. So you must be referring to your 1983 project, which was a spa and a sports company. When was this? It was a kind of a club in a way, but that, and that project we did, we thought it should be more like a civic. It's a nice idea. That was a lot of occupation at the time of dealing with a metropolis. Then you have a place of release you release your you relax and whatever thing is would cause first the way they were drawn, they were not traditional drawings and the way they were looked.
So when people saw these kind of beams flying around, they thought it's not possible to do, but actually that was, the project was easy to build on many of the other projects we actually took on later. Wow. She's got this whole thing, Chad, where everything that keeps most of [00:14:00] us down there, all the blows that we take, trying to make our dreams come true.
It's almost like she's. I get stronger. Yeah. Yeah. Pushing this idea of pushing to the extremes actually strengthens her positions. I think we've got some more clips along these lines, but I would encourage everyone to, to Google Hong Kong peak, PA K Zaha Hadid, you'll see these drawings that the interviews are referring to.
They look like Picasso or Cubist paintings, like not like architectural drawings that you would submit for, to an engineer to figure out if you can build it or not. And it's really interesting. Like she was even ahead of her own time because she's talking here about all the other buildings that we made were actually harder than this one.
To me, this constant, like looking around the next corner and then looking around that corner, that [00:15:00] kind of thinking, I think. How she was able to break through, into this dreamlike world that the interviewers mentioning care. Like she's not someone that starts with kind of the ground truth and reality as it is today.
She's like she's thinking and going way into the future. And then she's okay what's the future of the future? Like I'm going to do that and what I'm taking, what I'm getting and what I'm taking away from this is that's actually a really interesting insight into how we could put ourselves into that 10 X or moonshot mindset, because many of us look at, we do a lot of research and we kind of survey competition and what's going on today, but that may actually not get us to where we need to go.
We can't, we need to take extreme viewpoints and then we need to take extreme viewpoints from those extreme viewpoints. And then that's how we're actually going to get there. So I'm really encouraged by. By her and [00:16:00] just her willingness and comfort to just push very far beyond the next horizon. So how do you think we can use this idea of pushing yourself to the edges encountering pushback and disappointment, and it making you stronger, Chad, like how do we make that turn for those of us who are like, I'm trying to do something great.
It's very easy to get fed up with things because you've just been trying to track how, what is the term that she uses and what could we use to make that shift? I think from her ability, like this grit and resilience comes from her life experience. She mentioned I'm an immigrant, I'm a woman.
I think her constantly persevering through the. Built the resilient F work ethic that she has. So in some ways I'm saying you just got to push through the [00:17:00] hard work to build the resiliency. And that seems maybe a bit like a cop-out of an answer, but I think she's not someone that, so stubbornly stuck to her opinions where she didn't allow outside influence or her ideas to be tested because she still had to get approvals and.
I had to go by the engineers. And but she was willing to put out those extreme ideas and not keep them to herself because she let those extreme ideas play out in public discourse. She's able to slowly over time, win people over to her side and being like actually, maybe w let's try it.
Let's see if we can do it. Okay. So it seems like this deliberate choice to put things out there to make yourself vulnerable is almost interrelated with becoming stronger and therefore more confident and bolder in your vision. And it's almost, I see it as some sort of snowball effect that she built. [00:18:00] She from being an immigrant being a woman, trying to come with radical new thinking into a conservative field, every step of the way she was fearless in seeking interaction and feedback.
And she just got battle-hardened that's how I see that process evolving. Do you think that's how it worked? Yeah. When we've got a great clip here. This very next one, she's been able to make the most when she can't control her own destiny. So rather than get fed up or give up, she instead turns there's that stoic idea of the obstacle is the way where the thing in which you're struggling against is actually the way that you will get through it.
And I think she's definitely a, maybe as an unknowing participant in, in that story. Yeah, exactly. [00:19:00] But here she is talking about making the most, when you can't control your desks. A hot date is one of the most interesting architects in the world. She is sometimes called architectures one and only diva.
She's a leading member of the avant-garde of architecture. She won to claim at age 33 for her design of the peak club in Hong Kong. Her most famous work to date is probably the vitro of firehouse in Germany, but that may change. She's getting lots of attention for her design for the contemporary art center in Cincinnati, Ohio.
I am pleased to have her here to talk about what she is doing. There was a time when you were a young architect, you design the peak club, got lots of attention, never built. And then arc again, you don't have complete control of your destiny. That was one of the frustrations of this profession.
I wanted to pick club literally at the time Maga Sacha went to China and that whole thing with Hong Kong. Vanished and the whole market [00:20:00] collapsed. And so we always say that's out of the reason for these things, but we have no control off, but then it goes situations. And of course, when I won the peak when I, a day that did not know who it was, they never had a bedroom.
It was a guy that called me and Mr. Hadid. And I, when they discovered was a woman, there was a bit of fluffing going on. But we don't have a control on that situation. And I think that there still remains a slight cloud. What is this a painting of a woman architect? I'm not sure why it's dissipating now.
I think it's yeah, I think there are more women seen, it's not seen as a kind of a such strange thing. That very good men they should be. Why do you think that it was a male preserve for so long? I really people ask me all the time. I have no idea it doesn't make it.
I'm not saying it's a, it's an interesting question because I actually don't, I don't have a particular expansion department. [00:21:00] I think it's not just the thing with architecture is that the profession is mostly men, but also the Lorraine industries, I may have nominated. Whether the contractors' world or the developer's world or whatever it may be it is like the trade is mostly men, but I think it will change like anything else.
I love her pragmatic view on things like, even when discussing these great challenges, she's yeah, it was tough, but I just kept going like it does it's she's not I don't know what the word is, but she's not dripping in this highly emotional hands in the air. Ah, you won't believe it stoic.
This is all about yeah. Stoic. I just got on with it. Yeah. I can't control these things, so I'm just going to deal with it and do. What I can take charge of the things I can control and really push for them. So she's no one can tell me how to design something. So I'm going to put [00:22:00] out all my crazy ideas and maybe one of them will stick.
Yeah. And don't you find this idea of one of the, of just worrying about the things that you control and worrying a lot less about things that you cannot control. I have found this to be a really powerful thought that I actually, I could do a better job of remembering that in a ways aha. Zahara is reminding me dude, just focus on what you do and what you can control.
Yeah. You and I were talking about a specific work thing that's been going on and yeah. We could get upset and him, and, but ultimately it's something that was not our choosing someone decided to go in different direction and we have to make the best of that. And then we could waste the rest of the week and complain and get upset and that way our star wars.
But what good is that going to do as Mike? [00:23:00] Yeah. And also I you win some, you lose some, but the winners keep going, right? Yeah. Yeah. This resilience and grit that is built up over time of this constant pursuit of your dreams and desires when it comes to your profession and your work.
It's a really strong message that I think, I don't want to say it's solely in the realm of the women that we have profiled on the show, but it certainly overrepresented that like of thinking of Martha and Oprah and lady Gaga, and now Zahara they all really exemplify this. Relentlessness and grittiness, mostly due to all of the things that are stacked against them B because of their race or where they're from or their gender.
It's really an interesting quality for me to tie together between all of [00:24:00] them. Isn't it funny though this individual's aha. Hadeed has come up with these wildly creative futuristic memorable architectural designs and buildings and this massive legacy around her work.
And then what we're finding is there is this stoic resilience that is maybe her biggest gift for us to learn from like that. That's so cool. And that's one of the reasons on our 50th anniversary here. Chad, why I love this show because you are finding. Yeah, we are on our 50th moment of discovering that the great work people have done.
There's always got an underlying of behaviors and habits and rituals and mental models. And resilience is certainly one of them where I think we go. Next level. Chad is when you think about her, [00:25:00] is that she, for all her creative talents, doesn't see herself as the Sage in the tower, dreaming up ideas and passing it to her assistant.
Say, go make me this building. She's actually got some great thinking what it takes in terms of a group of people to make something special happens. So let's have a listen to Zahara did on the idea of 10. And also, I always believe in teamwork. So it's not that there's going to have the hand of the monster and then the others will work it out.
It doesn't work like that. It works like a group of people as a team come together, they put ideas together and we test them out and see what works best. And also it's not that they said it's not the master and the other people it's small, but we all bring to the table as far as I'm concerned, as the effort on all that we went above and the teams is what matters.
Then you know, the idea of [00:26:00] one single person I have, of course. Oh, the writer veto, or I can say I don't like it. People think I'm being very frivolous, but but I don't like, it means it's not right as far as I'm concerned and the, but there's arguments all the time between the specialty, me and CNS dolphin.
And I think but of course I always want to push the idea as far as possible to get a very good result. That's my ambition. I've spent a lot of time doing this because not because there's some sort of when I said, ah, two years ago, I never thought I'll be one no-no and I'll do anything.
I just, I was more, I really thought when I was school, that there was another way of doing things and that, and I believed in progress. And I think that if we do enough research and w we can push the envelope and we can get better results. And that's what I was wanting to do. [00:27:00] Yeah. There's this interesting.
I have this mental picture. I think Christina is over 400, maybe even close to 500 people today. There's like an impassioned group of architects around maybe some models or printouts of designs. I'm sure they're using 3d printers now in Zoho is they're like in a very Steve jobs, like way I don't think it's good enough and maybe that's true, but I think really what she's trying to push the team to do is just to make it better.
Like it may have been really great to begin with, but this idea of pushing the idea as far as possible is a very interesting leadership model and something that we have seen in others. We don't maybe have anecdotes from biographers that were talking about Steve jobs and where he comes off as a bit of a jerk.
I think Zoho is maybe a little bit more justice farm, but maybe in a [00:28:00] gentler kind of way their velvet hammer. Yeah. Yeah. And I think what you sensed already is when she was having her writer Vito and saying, I don't like it. That was code for push further. Like it wasn't so much her personal whim. She, it was a challenge.
I know you can do better, or I know we, the team can do better. And I think it's when you reflect on this idea that she had. Almost our artistic creative first architecture. Second, when she was creating visions of the future. You heard in some of those clips, people just I can't believe that is a building.
That's impossible. She made the impossible happen. And having the courage for that vision was a big part of her leadership. The second thing was she embodied like [00:29:00] she would make a Seneca and the Stoics proud. She's bring me adversity, bring me challenge. And you will only make me stronger.
That's such a huge learning and she continually challenged teams to push the ideas that they had further. There's already like a lifelong lesson in leadership, but all of that leadership chat actually produced. Some pretty amazing buildings. I feel like we got to get into some of the buildings a bit where should we start on that journey?
Yeah. So we have this interesting clip, really just giving a bit of a retrospective on many of the buildings that she's known for. And I would encourage all of you to make mental notes or actual notes and Google all of these buildings after after the show. And most of them, if not, all of them will be in our show notes as [00:30:00] well@moonshots.io.
But here's a look back on Zoho has body of work. designed buildings that could look as fluid as mercury, while appearing as light as a leaf. Since you, as parabolic shapes became a trademark of her architectural aesthetic, leading to her being called the queen of the curve, her creations were always, eye-catching often draw dropping and sometimes controversial.
I forgot what you can do. So modern work there was an obsession with historicism, a vernacular plus model. So the idea of new was almost alien. I saw her deed was born in Baghdad and studied maths at university. Before moving to London in the seventies to train as an architect, she set up her own practice shortly afterwards, then found there were no takers for her.
Haven't got ideas. I was women added strange stuff. I think they're all together intertwined, but there was definitely has been, and I still [00:31:00] remain is much, much better. Now there's definitely stigma too, about. It was this Cubist inspired building in Germany. That proved to be her big breakthrough. Soon. Her ability to mix old school craft skills with revolutionary new computer programs saw her emerge as one of the most exciting and innovative architects of her generation.
I think he has added an enormous amount of language talk to just she's divined shapes that we never thought that we could do and never thought that any architect could do. I'm not just something there's a lot of architecture that is a sort of variant on the architecture that's come before, but she did shapes gobsmacked to provisional flamboyance proved popular abroad, but let's say in the UK, her adopted home where she really only made her mark on the public's consciousness with her aquatic center, the 2012 London Olympics as a, an architect.
And the thing is, I'm not sure it's funny, dumb. Not here, not in this country, I'm still [00:32:00] considered to be on the margin despite all these things. And I don't mind being on the edge, actually, that's a good place to be. She had a reputation for being short tempered and difficult while some of her buildings who criticize it being impractical and overblown.
There's no doubt. She was uncompromising a characteristic that allowed her to overcome prejudice and skepticism, to design some truly remarkable buildings, which you received multiple awards, Dames or Hadid was a trailblazing visionary. She leaves behind an extraordinary body of work to be marveled at, by generations.
Happy on the edge, Chad. Everything we were saying in the leadership, she's yeah, I've done some amazing things. And yet the Brits, they still haven't quite accepted me as an architect. I guess that puts me on the edge. That's fine by me. Is she. The ultimate obstacle is the way we don't have a better example than this.
Yeah. And like very punk too. I think[00:33:00] her age is her age was of such a time where, especially in Britain I guess she moved in the seventies which was really the rise of the punk era. There's a bit of punk in her as well, that I think is really interesting and quite contrasting to many or most of the people that we've profiled here.
But as, as we've learned, it's really served her well. Yeah. And so often we search as humans. For being accepted by the center. Yeah, what her success has been rooted in is not being in the center, but being on the edge and thinking wildly differently. And you just need to look at her buildings and you're like, , I'm just searching on Google.
As we talk here, I'm looking at these places and they are there. [00:34:00] The formula is that she thought differently. It's not even you look at foster and to a lesser extent, Geary and you can see a certain signature styling. I look at Zahara and sometimes their curves or sometimes their angles.
Sometimes they're told sometimes they're small. Like the variety of this punk architecture is breathtaking and it does feel like you're somehow transported onto the set of blade runner. The future is now. Yeah. Yeah. And one of the buildings that put her on the map here in the U S was a contemporary art center.
She built in Cincinnati. We have a clip with Zaha talking to Charlie rose, and what's really interesting is how she was trying to bring the urban scape into the building. So as you were moving through the building, it brought the urban landscape inside of it, but let's get to Zaha and Charlie talking about the [00:35:00] contemporary art center in Cincinnati.
So what's the challenge here. You're at first of all, you're an artist and you love contemporary art. Yes. So this is interesting because you're going to design a building in which there is an engagement between somebody who comes to this public building, the contemporary arts center in Cincinnati and art.
And more than that, this is interesting because you want to, the curator, the director wants to create a building where artists will design and create art for the building, which has to do with space. And when it does anybody's building, it is another connection museum. It's borrowing music. Basically that means it means that they need tremendous flexibility on one hand, but they also need an identity as a kind of as a figure.
Yeah. Also I think that these all these products need to civic aspect, which you say, what does it do for the city? What is the feedback to the city? And therefore it is what it was seen as the ground. Front of example, that's seen as a, really an expression [00:36:00] of civic spaces in the city. So you enter the museum can sit down and have lunch, whatever, and you don't have to really, you can only pay if you have to pay when you go to the back of the building.
And also when we thought about it's, how, because of these two possibilities of potentials of flexibility and specificity about because of an entity, a hundred hobbies could be seen as a space, which could be predesigned. And sometimes it's almost like a kit right. Of how you can have very small spaces, which maybe there with a projection installation to very vast.
It was a very big show. Love hearing how she thought about that building, because it contributed to all the different stakeholders that she mentioned, but it was like a starter kit, a canvas, a platform for the artists themselves. And if I remember the story correctly, the curator had not been hired when she built the building.
So [00:37:00] she really in, in effect was the curator. So what happened is she had to think of a space that would serve and inspire artists. And within that, doing that job, it needed to serve not only the people that came to the city or came to the space, but all the people inside the city, you get the sense of this dialogue, that the building is between all these different stakeholders.
And you get a sense of the complexity of thought that goes into making what some people might think. You just make a building, but there's such a big. Conversation a bigger idea around the building. Yeah. And I think Zahab was a big proponent of, Hey, let's take a look at not just the quote unquote client who's the board of the museum, let's take a look at all of these users and how can we make this a space?
That's not only a great experience for [00:38:00] patrons who are going to the museum, but the artists that are creating exhibits specifically for that space for Cincinnati, the city and so many more. So she she broadened the view or the need to address as many users as possible to really make the building as successful as it could be, because it's speaking to so many needs.
Which I can only imagine is a really hard thing to do, but I think it's it. I'm sure it's a big contributing factor to why her buildings are so successful. So well, trafficked so well received by not only the direct clients, but the cities in which they're built there's cities that were clamoring for her to build in their cities because of how active and activated these built environments where, yeah.
And which takes us back to Geary, who was the first to really [00:39:00] do this when he did Bilbao. They now talk about the big bowel effect, which is when an architect creates such a signature piece, that it transforms the local neighborhood environment and community and regenerate. Just a big dose of inspiration and Zahara has followed and expanded on that idea dramatically.
And I just think to wrap up out indulgence in, in her architecture, one is I just say, go on to Google, putting Zaha did best buildings and it is a visual feast. Isn't it? Chad? I'm just looking at it right here. Yeah. Both you and I are just, I, yeah we have six tabs open each on different buildings.
I know what's on your browser tab right now. I'm staring at the same incredible photography as well. But you touched on this earlier, Mike it's, there's so much behind the [00:40:00] architecture and the, in the thinking and mental models that I think allows her to come up with and create such big and grand ideas fundamental to that is this idea of.
Not believing in compromise. So she goes out to the edge and stays there and just simply doesn't compromise. So here's her talking about just that. I don't like the word compromise to start with because I think that we know we are going to professional and we know that in every project you have to be quiet smart and the way you can interpret the work to suit the client or the requirements of the city or planning, whatever it is I've known for a long time that as long as I maintain the ideas, the central idea to the project, [00:41:00] And I can adjust the work to suit then I think it's, and that's not uncommon.
Sometimes some cases actually it makes it work better. If you have to go around as such and problem so I think there was always a demand to I, I think for a long time, people did not respect the profession of architecture and it was seen as a service and it was nothing of the duty of the architect to always dumb down the idea.
But I think he couldn't still maintain the central idea, but you can make it worth. Now, what was really interesting about her comment about going around problems can make projects better is I don't even know she realizes, but her specific. Thinking as to an architectural project directly mirrors our whole life [00:42:00] philosophy of being stoic, living on the edge, being tougher through adversity, that directly comes back in her work.
She says actually facing the challenges with the clients and the constraints is actually makes the work better. I'm not even sure if she realized it, but it's a huge correlation. Yeah. Who knew that this would become this, the stoicism show here with Zoe.
It's funny. You're helping me draw that connection to me. Cause I don't think I, it clicked until you just said it, this idea this is something that I really want to get better at and take home with me and work on is to. There's also an element of simplicity in what she's saying.
She's saying if you can find and hold onto the central idea, kind of everything on the edges you can figure out how to overcome, but as long as that central idea is really executed upon, then then your brave ideas safe [00:43:00] from being watered down. She's like a perfect example of how we can not water down ideas and the way she works in the way she thinks is completely antithetical to the constant chipping away or the watering down of ideas, which is like the reality or in most places in the reality of how most of us think about doing our work it's I don't have enough time or I don't have enough capacity or we don't have enough for research or we're not really interested in taking that big.
If we all just stuck to our guns, so to speak as a, as I did, maybe maybe there would be some more moonshots out there. Yeah. Yeah. And I think what goes hand in hand with solving problems, working within the constraints, holding onto the ideas, particularly in a craft that is both art and science is the act of learning and the act of [00:44:00] teaching.
And remarkably enough, this next clip, this is our sort of getting our heads now into how do you grow your skills and behaviors in this ultimate challenge? So let's have a listen to Zaha Hadid on the importance of T. People always think people always ask me, do I know when we're done not an education.
They always say, oh teaching, because it would give you some ideas when it, that's not really the reason you're teaching. I think it's a very reciprocal experience and also to teach and it can test certain ideas. It's not that you want to test them. It's not, they're not like as soon as the Guinea pigs, but you said a certain ideas which are very suitable in terms of education to test certain things.
I don't believe on in the kind of I believe in not only in a kind of a metaphysical project or metaphoric, but more a project where it eventually could be achieved as a building. [00:45:00] And I think it was very important to me when I was a student that this idea of pushing certain ideas, which seemed quite extreme to the mainstream.
I was the most. So I think dusting and these ideas in schools are very exciting. And I believe also that people and the professionals had also teach because there, there should not be this big gap between the student body and the profession. They're not to, no, not necessarily to Wells. There aren't enough ideas and the worm of practice should be very similar or connected.
And that's why I like teaching. So we've often hear people that we've profiled. Mike, talk about their learning practice or the importance of lifelong learning. I like Zoho as addition to this, in that she's looking at it from the other direction and saying the teaching part is important because it's not [00:46:00] just about theory.
And so we can learn all day and learn all this theory, but if you're not putting it into practice, then. Then it can get lost. And so it's interesting. I think she's also saying that she learns best through teaching because she can throw out these wild and crazy ideas to her students and see what they do with them.
So maybe some of them take those ideas and run with them and she's oh, okay. So this thing that was only like an idea or a theory in my head, I infected my students with this idea and they went off and actually a few of them were able to pull it off. So it's an interesting way for her to test out her ideas at scale with her students.
I think it's really fascinating. Yeah. And I love that she, she gave a little a reference that teaching is reciprocal. And I thought that was really neat because it's certainly. A theme for me is that if you want to learn something, teach it. And inside of that means, if you're going to teach it, you need to know what you're talking about.
So [00:47:00] I really liked that. And I liked the way that teaching for her is constant prototyping of new ideas, not of new theories alone, but theories that could eventually in practical ideas, buildings that could get made. So you can see this huge learning engine that builds up with her because she pushes to the edge.
She stays there. She's not compromising out there and she's always learning on the edge. And I, I th I can just imagine the, the industry that she created. As an individual, just through that sheer force of those practices. Yeah. And I see academia as a, almost a user testing ground or like a prototyping ground for her that is much faster than the professional side.
All architects know that building grand buildings just takes a lot of time. You got to [00:48:00] find a client, you got to design a, you gotta be sure it can be engineered. Then you have to build it. Then you have to be sure that it meets spec. And then finally people can occupy it for some buildings or are built environments that can be like 10 years if you're building a new medical school campus or a hospital or something, but Zoho has found like a hack where she's been teaching for.
I think she said her entire professional career. Like as soon as she graduated school, she's turned around and started. She can just test out her ideas in front of students. And she gets immediate feedback within the semester, she'll see what studio projects her students are doing.
And she can get that very rapid feedback. I'm now trying to figure out how I can get back into teaching so that I can around some of the wild and crazy ideas to get that feedback is I think hopefully our listeners know at this point, you and I are a bit addicted to that user feedback when it comes to the products and services and stories [00:49:00] that that we're creating together.
Yeah. This using academia as this kind of prototyping of ideas environment, to really fascinating to me. Yeah. Very energizing. And what it's particularly important here is what I take away as an entrepreneur is to be in perpetual test. Like never get too comfy with the status quo. Always be testing, get new insights, get new learnings, fail a little bit, learn a little bit.
And I'm sure that ended up being such a great source of her inspiration because you look at her portfolio of work and it is breathtaking. It's not like she's got one hit. She's just back to back. Everything is just dramatic, futuristic draw dropping. It is an [00:50:00] incredible body of work that learning process was the key technique, but we wouldn't be signing off the show if we didn't come back to her signature behavior.
We got the learning thing down. We got going to the edge down, but I think Chad, we might have a clip that really speaks to the heart of Zaha, her due date. Yeah, this relentless gritty, perseverance through adversity, which has forged this incredible creative career of hers. Here's a great clip from Zoho talking about how to turn our weaknesses into strengths, but they do.
I think the world generally needs women in it because they do have a different view. I had no I role models speak[00:51:00] as a women for women. And also, I didn't have to really be like all the others because I'm not a man and so on. So that gave me a lot of freedom and liberated me and that was really important.
But of course, on the other hand, Sam, the other problem of goes is that you have people don't at the time then nothing woman couldn't do certain things which is also a stupid I think they just, I think you have to, I think to knowledge and skill, you begin to have more confidence and that, I think it's the confidence that allows you just to be it persevere and that I think that woman, I said module.
But as much better, but instead of quite difficult I think [00:52:00] that I find out I must have one woman in my office they go out and have children and they do come back and they worked very hard and they're okay. I think when they're out for too long and becomes more from job continuity, I think in the continuity and architecture is a big problem.
You are out of sync or with your colleagues, you don't know what's going on. Exactly. So you need to work harder. And that's what I did. I worked harder than anybody else, not so that people can take me more seriously. It, because the work I wanted to do it requires is so much more research and resolution that I had to really aware of all of our.
Work hard and then Carter, and you can only do that if you're doing what you love. And that is one thing I know for sure. Like you can't manufacture false [00:53:00] commitment. It just doesn't loss. But for me, Chad, do you know my, I find it so exciting to look at her work. I'm a big fan of blade runner.
And I feel like I'm like blade runner has entered today. When I look at these buildings, it is really exhilarating because you, you do have this sense looking at her work like, oh my gosh, I could not have imagined that as a building. And that's, I dunno, there's a real gift in that, but what a gift in seeing her resilience and how she's made every challenge, something that's just made her strong.
And throughout that process, she's always been learning and testing new ideas and pushing edges. Oh my gosh. I'm just, I'm so pumped. I have to go back to the gym now. I'm all bummed out. Yeah. Why? [00:54:00] I did a bit of cursory research on most of your buildings. Now. I just want to do a lot of in-depth research on all of, for buildings and make excuses to my wife, to go on trips to be able to see them and Franklin riots and Norman fosters.
And Frank Gary is that, that's the fun part about this series is we can go and visit sometimes in our own cities, buildings that have been created by these individuals. Profiling innovators that are working in the built environment and at this kind of scale is really interesting. It's not to say that building rockets and electric cars in the solar futures, not also I really incredible things to be doing, but the parallels to all of the previous integrators that we've talked about is just something that was a bit unexpected for me.
In talking about architecture. It's, you've got to be in touch with the users. You've got a stick to your bold [00:55:00] ideas. You've got to test it's many of the same, many of the same things just to just a slightly different product. Yes, indeed. Who would have imagined that Zaha Hadid had so much to give.
Quite epic and but puts us on a great course for our final architect for our next show. Chad, do you want to prime that and tell everyone what? Yeah. So we're rounding out the series of Bjarke, Ingels of big the BR angles group. If that doesn't signal a bit about his ego. I am not sure what would, but he's a very interesting, I think he's one of the best salespeople for architecture to the public, just Google his name and you'll find kind of his pitch videos for some of their projects.
And he is able to put a really fascinating [00:56:00] and interesting narrative around the buildings that they're building. Yeah, I'm really excited because he's a blend of my flavor of storytelling with architecture. We'll be able to learn a lot from looking at him and what he and his team have built.
Yeah. He's done some amazing things. Also some adversity in his story when he started, he, a lot of his architecture was born out of the fact that their first projects had very small budgets. And so he was ingenious in finding work arounds that kind of led him onto this breakthrough set of work.
And he is risen very very fast to the higher ranks of architects. So that's gonna be, that's going to be wonderful. And yeah, and a connection to a company that we've talked about here on the show we work. Yeah. He's recently tapped his as his kind of chief [00:57:00] entrepreneur or a chief architect in residence for WeWork.
So yeah. We work probably could have had their choice of any architect and why they chose him and just have to tune into the next show to find out what was so interesting about him and his work that accompany like we work with snatch them up. Oh yeah. Yeah. I hadn't heard about that though.
That's fascinating. We have to remind all of our listeners, if you want any of the notes links if you want to watch or listen to any of our archives, head off to moonshots.io, where you'll get all the goodies, you can get our newsletter. Don't forget to jump into the iTunes podcast universe and leave us a review.
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Oh my gosh. Yeah. 50 shows. Mike, I don't want to let that pass without giving us a small pat on the back. I look forward to recording many more shows with you, Mike. For all you listeners out there, everything we've talked about on today's show and more links, photos, documentaries, everything, you can find it.
moonshots.io. I saw a couple new iTunes reviews come in since our last show. And so I just wanted to ask all of you. Thank you to all of you who have left a review that makes a big difference and then discoverability of the show and yeah, just happen there and leave us a review. And if you to go above and beyond and write a little something about the show, maybe one of your favorite episodes or one of your favorite insights or learnings Mike, or I, or [00:59:00] both of us will read those out in future episodes.
But yeah, we want to thank you for taking the time to leave reviews for the show. Absolutely. So thank you to you, Chad. Thank you to all of our listeners. Really excited to jump into the next show with Bjarke Ingels. That's a wrap for Zaha Hadid, and that's a wrap for everything today. We'll see you next time.