Designing a museum is nothing new for Zaha Hadid Architects. Creating one on top of Mount Kronplatz in northern Italy is something else entirely.

I grew up with what Peter Smithson described as a whiff of the powder of Modernism, and with a passion for its architecture – plus a presumption that architecture was women’s work,” Denise Scott Brown said in a recent interview with architecture curator Clare Farrow, recalling her Norman Hanson-designed childhood Johannesburg home and how it helped steer her towards her venerated career.

Sales have officially commenced for Zaha Hadid’s 520 West 28th Street, a curvaceous luxury mid-rise tower that will join the throng of bombastic buildings abutting Manhattan’s High Line.

As you traverse the streets of Midtown Manhattan, the new skyscraper known as 432 Park Avenue pops in and out of view unexpectedly, hidden behind the Waldorf-Astoria at one moment, then looming menacingly over Lever House'a giant watchtower of blindingly white concrete with the proportions of an elongated toothpaste box stood on end. 

The towers that comprise Zaha Hadid's latest project may look precarious, but they are certainly not faulty: “They change shape and geometry as you move up,” explains project director Michele Pasca di Magliano.