The Architecture of Wellness

Zaha Hadid hugs people through a building

The Observer, October 2006

Zaha Hadid, the most acclaimed female architect of our age, has struggled for years with a hurtful dilemma. Despite her fame and success, despite an international reputation that has seen her win the biggest prizes and the most exciting commissions, and despite making London her professional headquarters for 26 years, she has never built a building in Britain. ‘It’s ridiculous,’ she says in the vast conference room at her office in Farringdon, London. ‘I have no idea why they don’t choose me! I can’t speculate any more. Nobody has actually come up to me and said, “They don’t want you here …”‘

In a few days, this peculiar state of affairs will come to an end, when her first building – small, elegant, perfectly designed for its intended use – will be unveiled in the grounds of the Victoria Hospital, Kirkcaldy, Fife. It is a tribute to a friend of hers, and unlike most buildings that go up by stellar architects these days, it has partly been made possible by the old-fashioned notion of public subscription. Hadid has worked on it for expenses only, and it may turn out to be the most life-changing piece of work she has ever been involved with.

‘The idea was that it should be hovering over the edge,’ she says as she consults her drawings. ‘The idea for the building is that it’s like a fold, like one whole piece that just wraps around. These shapes here are openings for light … inside there are curved walls … here you can have a consultation with a nurse, and here you can have a relaxation course, and here is the toilet, and this is the library area, and here is the main kitchen area with this big table where you can have tea and just chat to whoever else is there.’

The building she has designed, which cost a little over £1m to construct, is quite far from the avant-garde anti-gravitational creations that sealed her reputation. It is, in fact, like a small house, which befits its purpose: a home from home for people with cancer.

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