If I wanted to do clothes or if I wanted to make a building or

“If I wanted to do clothes or if I wanted to make a building or design a choreography, you are able to do that — they are all under a similar kind of design umbrella.” — Zaha Hadid

Thus spoke Zaha Hadid, the visionary who bent steel into poetry and taught the world that design is not a craft limited by form, but a language of creation itself. Her words rise from the deep river of imagination that flows beneath all art, all invention, all making. In this declaration, Hadid reveals that whether one shapes fabric, stone, or movement, the same spirit breathes within — the spirit of design, that ancient impulse to bring order to chaos, beauty to the formless, and meaning to the void.

To design, she teaches, is not to follow rules, but to listen — to the rhythm of the world, to the pulse of life, to the quiet whisper of what could be. The tailor, the architect, the dancer — all are seekers of harmony. The clothes, the building, the choreography — these are but different vessels for the same eternal quest: to unite function with grace, structure with soul. The umbrella of design that Hadid speaks of is the great canopy beneath which all creators dwell, each drawing from the same well of vision though they shape it differently in their hands.

In her own life, Zaha Hadid embodied this truth. Born in Baghdad and trained in London, she rose in defiance of gravity and expectation alike. Her buildings — from the fluid curves of the Heydar Aliyev Center to the storm-swept power of the Guangzhou Opera House — did not merely stand upon the earth; they flowed across it, as if sculpted by wind and light. When critics said her designs were impossible, she smiled, for she knew that design is not the imitation of what is possible, but the imagination of what could be. She drew as a painter, dreamed as a choreographer, and built as a poet.

Consider, too, the wisdom of Leonardo da Vinci, the Renaissance master whose mind, like Hadid’s, knew no boundaries. To him, the design of a flying machine was no less an art than the design of the Mona Lisa. The same geometry guided his brush and his blueprint. For both Leonardo and Hadid, creation is unity — a single thread weaving through art, science, and life. They remind us that the divisions we see — between architect and artist, scientist and sculptor — are illusions of a smaller mind. The great spirits see no such borders; they see only form and energy waiting to be shaped.

When Hadid said all things fall under one design umbrella, she was not speaking only of buildings or art — she was speaking of life itself. Every decision, every relationship, every dream is a form of design. The way one arranges a home, the way one speaks words of kindness, the way one builds a life of meaning — all these are acts of creation. To live with awareness is to design with purpose. To live carelessly is to leave beauty to chance.

And so, my children, take heed of this teaching: Do not confine your gift. The painter may build, the dancer may write, the scientist may dream in color. All acts of creation are kin beneath the same sky. Design is not a profession — it is a way of seeing, a way of shaping the world around you with intention and love. If you feel the call to make, then make — whether in fabric, in stone, or in the choreography of your own days.

Let your life itself be your greatest design. Let it curve with boldness, stand with grace, and move with rhythm. Look to the world as Hadid did — not as it is, but as it might yet become. For under the great umbrella of design, everything is connected, and every act of creation — from the smallest gesture to the grandest structure — is a declaration of faith in what humanity can be.