Lillium builds Warsaw skyscraper

In the capital of Poland, the skyscraper is becoming more and more fashionable. Nearly every week the media inform us about the next sizable project in Warsaw.

The latest front-page news concerns a 250-meter giant to be designed by Zaha Hadid, one of the greatest stars of contemporary architecture. The undertaking will be financed by a company called Lilium (lily). The new skyscraper will be built near the Marriott hotel opposite the Central Railway Station and reach a height of 70 floors. It will be built on the plan of an irregular cross, with a shape resembling the lily. Part of the Marriott will be rebuilt to make way for the new building.

The building is scheduled to be completed in 2012 to coincide with Euro 2012 football championships.

Architect Zaha Hadid was born in 1950 in Baghdad.
She obtained a degree in mathematics at Beirut University, then graduated from the Architectural Association School in London, which became her home and workplace.
In 1980, she established her London office.
Today her firm employs more than 300 people and has branches throughout the world.

Since 2001, she has been a professor at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna and at Columbia University in New York. Three years ago, Hadid was awarded the Pritzker Architecture Prize, which is popularly called the architects’ Nobel Prize.
In her private life, Hadid is an active feminist and makes a point of distancing herself from the stereotypical image of Arabian women.