The Sinuous Vision of Architect Zaha Hadid

Burnham Pavilion, Chicago, 2009
To help mark the centennial of Daniel Burnham's influential city plan for Chicago, Hadid was commissioned to produce a temporary pavilion in Millennium Park. Long fascinated by the structural ingenuity of clothing by designers like Donna Karan, Issey Miyake and Rei Kawakubo of Commes des Garçons, she decided to make her contribution a triumph in textiles. It's a taut shell of 24 fabric panels stretched, tied and even zippered into place over an aluminum frame to form something like a ridged pontoon. Creating the metal rib cage required bending and welding more than 7,000 unique pieces of aluminum.

• 2010 TIME 100
• Thinker: Zaha Hadid