Zaha Hadid becomes first woman to win RIBA Royal Gold Medal

Iraqi-British architect Dame Zaha Hadid hung up during a phone interview with BBC’s Today program on Thursday morning, after she was questioned about migrant workers’ deaths at the building sites for the 2022 Qatar World Cup.

The architect, who was born in Iraq and whose practice in London is involved in several projects across the Arabian Gulf, was awarded the prize in recognition of her lifetime body of work.

Zaha Hadid hung up on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme mid-interview after presenter Sarah Montague claimed 1200 migrant workers had died building Hadid’s World Cup stadium in Qatar. “Adding, “…there are no deaths on our site whatsoever.

When Ms Montague suggested that the issue was “fascinating”, Dame Zaha replied: ‘It’s not fascinating, because it was reported in the Press and they had to withdraw their statement and they had to apologise to me for wrongdoing’.

The interview then moved away from Qatar to Hadid’s canned Tokyo Olympic stadium design which sparked her exit from the interview, “let’s stop this conversation right now”, she said before leaving Montague with dead air to fill.

Zaha Hadid had already reached rockstar status in world of architecture.

Hadid was personally approved by the Queen for the 2016 award, which the Royal Institute of British Architects (Riba) presents to a person or group who significantly influences “the advancement of architecture”.

Her first major commission, the Vitra Fire Station in Weil Am Rhein, Germany, opened in 1993, and was followed by a slew of other significant projects including MAXXI in Rome (2009), the London Aquatics Centre for the 2012 Olympic Games (2011), and the Heydar Aliyev Centre in Baku (2013).

“I’m not taking it lightly but I think it’s for the government to look to take care of”, she said.

Jane Duncan, RIBA president and chair of the selection committee, said she hoped Hadid’s award would blaze a trail for women in a profession with a noticeable gender gap. In 2014, she successfully sued the New York Review of Books after Martin Filler claimed that 1,200 workers had died on the project.

“We now see more established female architects all the time”.

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1959), Le Corbusier (1953), Frank Lloyd Wright (1941) and George Gilbert Scott (1859). Ms. Hadid recently decided not to re-enter the competition for a new stadium design, after her firm was unable to find a construction company to partner up with.

“Don’t ask me a question if you can’t let me finish it, then I won’t say anything”, said Hadid.

Zaha Hadid: There haven’t been any problems, actually, I have to put you right. “I don’t want to carry on”, she said, before ending the call. “But I think it is a lot better”. The first woman to be awarded the prestigious gong in her own right, the 64-year-old earned a place as one of the most sought-after architects in the world, having bestowed her trademark blobs on cityscapes from Baku to Guangzhou.