Zaha Hadid took home £725,000 from her company last year as it broke through the £10m-turnover barrier.

Hadid is the sole shareholder in Zaha Hadid Architects, and her package comprised an interim dividend payment of £425,000 and a salary of £300,000 in the year to 30 April 2007.

The dividend payment was up from £240,000 in 2006 but her salary was down from £330,849.

The company’s other director, Patrick Schumacher, took home a £265,744 salary.


Zaha Hadid

Although the firm’s turnover jumped 41% from £9.6m to £13.6m, pre-tax profit fell 17% to £1m as a result of its higher administration expenses. These doubled from £1.58m in 2006 to £3m last year.A spokesperson for Zaha Hadid said the expenses were the result of a “substantial investment in IT and infrastructure”.

The figures show that Hadid was busier abroad than in the UK. The £13.6m turnover was split between £11.4m from overseas work and £2.2m in the UK. The 16% contribution from the UK was an increase on last year’s total of 12%.

Some have claimed Hadid’s designs, including the aquatics centre for the 2012 Olympic Games, are problematic. Last month her design for the £5m Architecture Foundation headquarters in London, which was to have been her first completed design in England, was axed amid reports that contractors were not able to build it within the budget set.