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The Harvard GSD Honours Zaha Hadid with the Zaha Hadid / Omniyat Fellowship Fund

The Harvard Graduate School of Design, to celebrate Zaha Hadid’s extraordinary contributions to the field of design have announced the establishment of the Zaha Hadid / Omniyat Fellowship Fund. A tribute to Hadid’s work, her life and her legacy, the Zaha Hadid / Omniyat Fellowship Fund will provide financial aid to qualifying students who are enrolled in the Master in Architecture program at the GSD and who are residents or citizens of the MENA region.

Zaha Hadid was a design innovator whose pioneering work—including the Aquatic Centre for the London Olympics, the Broad Art Museum in East Lansing, Michigan and the Guangzhou Opera House in China—defies convention. Hadid taught at the GSD in 1986 as a Design Critic in Architecture, and then again in 1994 as Kenzo Tange Visiting Professor of Architecture. Hadid last spoke at the School, in 2013, when she shared projects from her 400-person London-based office, reminisced about her time teaching at the GSD.

Mohsen Mostafavi, Dean and Alexander and Victoria Wiley Professor of Design, has known Hadid since the two were classmates at the Architectural Association in London. “Zaha Hadid will be remembered for her creativity, her persistence, and her loyalty as a friend,” Mostafavi said following her untimely passing in March. “She worked against the odds, promoting innovative ideas that were, at times, hard for people to embrace. But she persevered and in the end was extraordinarily successful in producing a body of work—buildings of amazing quality—that will be not only a testament to her legacy as an architect but also a significant contribution to architecture.”

Mahdi Amjad, Omniyat’s Executive Chairman and Founder, established the Fellowship Fund in order to honour Hadid’s contributions to the fields of architecture and design. ''This scholarship will stand as a lasting tribute to this artist who brought people together,'' Amjad said during the event. ''It is my desire for this fellowship to find the next Zaha Hadid from our region.''

The Zaha Hadid/Omniyat Fellowship is anticipated to be awarded in the Spring 2017 semester and will be administered via the GSD’s admissions and financial aid process.

 (Above image courtesy of Harvard GSD)

 

The Harvard Crimson