Martin Filler, the architecture critic for the New York Review of Books, has apologized for a factual error that prompted Zaha Hadid's recent lawsuit for defamation against the publication. In a note to the editors posted last night to the publication’s website, Filler corrects a statement made in his June article “The Insolence of Architecture,” in which he quoted her expressing supposed indifference to construction worker deaths in Qatar, and said about 1,000 workers had died in building her Al Wakrah stadium for the 2022 World Cup. “There have been no worker deaths on the Al Wakrah stadium project," Filler writes, "and Ms. Hadid’s comments about Qatar that I quoted in the review had nothing to do with the Al Wakrah site or any of her projects. I regret the error.”
A rendering of Hadid's Al Wakrah Stadium / Courtesy of Zaha Hadid
The suit demanded that Filler “publish an immediate retraction in the NYRB with at least as much prominence as the Article itself,” and while the critic’s statement may not fully satisfy those conditions, they do offer an earnest correction. The article remains online, with appended qualifications.
Hadid’s legal actions, meanwhile, appear to be a disturbing, if not absurdly comical, measure of her social consciousness. The suit’s allegations of journalistic misconduct are valid — Filler did, in fact, commit an egregious factual error in claiming that there had been 1,000 deaths on a project that had not yet begun construction. But the suit’s claims of damage done to Hadid’s reputation are serving as a counterattack against the architect's many critics, not an answer to their very legitimate concerns.
“The Article has exposed Hadid to public ridicule, contempt, aversion, disgrace, and induced evil opinions of her in the minds of right-thinking persons, while depriving her of confidence and friendly intercourse in society,” reads the complaint filed by Hadid’s lawyer, Oren J. Warshavsky, in Manhattan Supreme Court on August 21. But haven’t Hadid’s own actions done as much to earn her the disapproval and disdain of many architecture critics, fellow design professionals, and conscientious members of society? As another architecture critic, James S. Russell, so aptly noted: "Hadid wins dafamation battle, loses reputation war."
Those thousand workers did not die at Hadid’s construction site, but they perished in circumstances closely linked to her forthcoming project. Nothing suggests that more such tragedies won’t transpire with the commencement of construction of the stadium. Precautions to prevent the further loss of life could begin with a demand that the Qatari government, her engineer, AECOM, and the eventual project contractor engage in humane building practices. Instead of pursuing initiatives that would ensure worker safety and drastically distinguish her construction site from prevalent working conditions for laborers in Qatar, she pillories the press.
Filler’s mistake was factual, not a lapse in critical judgment. "Hadid has suffered severe emotional and physical distress as a direct result of the Article," note her suit documents. Unfortunately, construction workers across the Gulf are regularly exposed to rather more serious forms of such distress while toiling to realize the formal whimsies of many a lauded architect. If Hadid was truly troubled by Filler's statements, she could use her position of authority to do something about their suffering, and her own.
