Design of the Year winner announced

Artist Dame Zaha Hadid’s Heydar Aliyev Centre in Baku, Azerbaijan, has won the Design Museum Design of the Year Award.

It’s the seventh edition of the competition and Hadid is the first woman to win the top prize.  Previously she won a Sterling Prize for Architecture in 2010 and 2011.

The overall winners were chosen by a panel of experts from more than 70 nominated designs in the categories of architecture, digital, fashion, furniture, graphics, product and transport. The same judges have also chosen winners in the other six categories. Winners included Prada for the fashion award and Volkswagen for transport.

Hadid’s Heydar Aiyev Centre is the first architectural design to win the award.

“It’s beautiful, it’s inspiring, it’s the clear vision of a singular genius and we thought it was a remarkable piece of work.” Said Ekow Eshun ( Chair of the jury).

Hadid was absolutely delighted to receive this award!  The surface of the Heydar Aliyev Centre’s external plaza rises and folds to define a sequence of public events spaced within: welcoming, embracing and directing visitors throughout the building.  It creates a new civic space for the city.

The building includes a conference hall, a gallery hall and a museum.

Hadid’s work is well known in the design world.  In the past she designed the Aquatic Centre for London’s 2012 Olympic Park.

Her work includes designing the main station for Saudi Arabia’s underground system in Riyadh and also creating  the design for Tokyo’s 2020 Olympic Park.

All the nominated designs for the Design of the Year Award are on display in an exhibition at London’s Design Museum until August 25^th, 2014.

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