Architecture and Music: The visionary legacy of Zaha Hadid and Freddie Mercury
Architecture & Music (by AI Artist).
Linking the passing of Zaha Hadid (1950–2016) with that of Freddie Mercury (1946–1991) may seem, at first glance, an unusual pairing. Yet this juxtaposition offers a powerful lens through which to reflect on the legacy of two extraordinary figures who redefined the boundaries of their respective arts: architecture and music. Of multicultural origins — Hadid, born in Baghdad; Mercury, born in Zanzibar to Parsi parents — they brought to the heart of Western culture an open, cosmopolitan vision. Their art transcended all barriers: it became a bridge between worlds, a universal language of emotion, freedom, and metamorphosis. Both departed at the height of their fame. She, a visionary architect, was reshaping cities with buildings that resembled living organisms; he, the frontman of Queen, continued to enchant the world with his voice and electrifying stage presence.
© Zaha Hadid Architects I Vitra Fire Station.
© Cristian Richter I Vitra Fire Station.
Their deaths interrupted two races against time, yet rendered their imprint immortal. One might say Hadid designed spaces as Mercury composed songs: both sought to give form to emotion, gesture, and the desire to break rules. Hadid bent space to emotion, creating buildings that seem to move, breathe, defy gravity. Mercury did the same with music: he fused genres, broke conventions, and transformed every song into a theatrical, visceral experience. Both left behind something that can be “inhabited”: buildings that are lived in, melodies that feel like home. Their impact transcended disciplinary boundaries, influencing popular culture and becoming symbols of a creative freedom that continues to inspire. They both passed at the peak of their careers, leaving a void that amplified their presence. To achieve this, they used theatricality — in its highest and most authentic sense — to convey sensations, to draw the public into an all-encompassing emotional experience. Theatricality is not merely a form of expression: it is a semantic device capable of generating meaning, staging tensions, ruptures, and transformations. When we speak of theatricality as a language of change, we refer to a grammar made of gestures, spaces, rhythms, and symbols that does not merely represent the world, but questions it, subverts it, reinvents it.
© Iwan Baam I Heydar Aliyev Center.
© Zaha Hadid Architects I Heydar Aliyev Center.
As Carlo Olmo wrote in Il Giornale dell’Architettura following Hadid’s death: “death transforms works that were much debated, sometimes heavily criticized, into untouchable simulacra.” It’s a sharp reflection on how the passing of an author radically alters the perception of their works, suspending them in a kind of posthumous reverence. This applies to Hadid as much as to Mercury: their absence has amplified their presence, rendering it almost mythological. Today, Zaha Hadid Architects continues to carry forward her vision, yet there is a noticeable lack of personality — that identity force that made each project an extension of her thought. Similarly, Queen’s music and Mercury’s image continue to resonate, revived in films, concerts, and tributes that feed their memory. And yet, everything that came after — their “after” — seems devoid of that original vitality. It’s as if the ritual repetition of remembrance has sterilized the creative impulse that once animated them. Their works live, but no longer evolve; they speak, but no longer surprise. Thus, the simulacrum replaces the author, and celebration risks becoming a form of oblivion disguised as homage.
© Hufton & Crow I Riverside Museum.
© Zaha Hadid Architects I Riverside Museum.
Ultimately, Zaha Hadid and Freddie Mercury never truly disappeared. Their presence is still felt — in architectural dreams and immortal notes, in urban landscapes and on the stages of imagination. They are proof that art, when authentic, does not die: it transfigures into myth, settles into legend. But behind the myth remains the message: art is freedom, movement, rupture. Hadid and Mercury brought a cosmopolitan and rebellious vision to the heart of Western culture. They didn’t merely excel — they reinvented languages, subverted rules, expanded horizons. Since then, the world has changed profoundly. The signs of that transformation pass through us, question us, involve us. And it’s natural to wonder: if they were still among us, how would they influence not only architecture and music, but the entire contemporary imagination, increasingly barren of poetry and courage? In the meantime, try looking at the Vitra Fire Station in Weil am Rhein (Germany, 1993) while listening to We Will Rock You (1977); move through the spaces of the Heydar Aliyev Center in Baku (Azerbaijan, 2013) with Radio Ga Ga (1984) in your headphones; or let yourself be enveloped by the curves of the Riverside Museum in Glasgow (Scotland, 2011) to the notes of Bohemian Rhapsody (1975). You’ll discover that their works are not mere testimonies: they are living experiences, vibrations that continue to converse with the present.
Architecture & Music (by AI Artist).