Deyan Sudjic mentioned that Zaha Hadid “built a library” at St Antony’s College, Oxford. The Investcorp Building, which is quite simply the most beautiful building to have been created in Oxford this century, is the new extension of the university’s Middle East Centre, a major hub for the study and better understanding of the complexities of Middle Eastern pasts, presents and futures.
As well as a top-lit first-floor library, Hadid’s centre offers a ground-floor gallery and cafe, an archive reading room, between-floors archive stores, and an underground oak-lined auditorium. In her address at the opening, Hadid stressed the metaphor of the Investcorp Building as an architectural and intercultural bridge. It is one of her smaller buildings, but for Oxford immense. It is one of 11 (new) Oxfordshire buildings to be nominated for the RIBA South 2016 Awards.
