ARCHITECTURE
Zaha Hadid
Founder // Zaha Hadid Architects

DESIGNING WOMAN Thirty years ago, Zaha Hadid's designs were considered innovative but too radical and complex to be built. "She was really a cult figure, without ever building anything of great note," says Peter Palumbo, chair of London's Serpentine Gallery and current head of the committee that grants the Pritzker Prize, the highest award in architecture (which Hadid won in 2004). Her first built commission was from a corporate client, Vitra, a Swiss furniture manufacturer that asked her to design a fire station for its factory complex. The narrow building, made of exposed reinforced concrete with layered walls, was her first that got other architects to take note, and since then, Hadid's reputation has grown by leaps and bounds. (She once had just a few staff members, but now employs 230.) In 2005, BMW unveiled a new central building designed by Hadid; its dynamic structure, with floors connected by a series of giant stairlike terraces, solidified her status as a starchitect. Hadid will also create the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University, which is likely to look similarly unconventional. Says Vitra chairman Rolf Fehlbaum, "She makes things you couldn't have made before." —Miriam Datskovsky

AUTOMOBILES
Chris Bangle
Chief of design // BMW

SHAPER OF THINGS TO COME Since Bangle joined BMW in 1992, he's become the car designer that other car designers watch. Bangle, who previously worked stints at Opel and Fiat, could be described as the American who made Bavarians look Italian. Before his arrival, most models were square and boxy. He reshaped them into curvaceous cars with rounded corners, as with the Z3, and has recently updated BMW's look further to make it strikingly angular: The Z4 has lots of straight lines and sharp corners, which make it appear meaner and more masculine. Such innovations have aroused passionate feelings—mostly pro, but some vociferously con. Australian product designer Marc Newson complains that the Z4 looks as if it were "designed with a machete." But despite such carping, Bangle's ideas usually turn up in other manufacturers' cars. For example, after recently raising the trunk line several inches on BMW's 7 Series sedans—creating more downforce to better grip the road—he was pilloried by design critics. Since then? The eye-catching high trunk has become a feature on sedans from Lexus and Acura. —Owen Edwards

MEDIA
Oprah Winfrey
Founder // Harpo Productions

QUEEN OF ALL MEDIA As Disney C.E.O. Bob Iger, a close friend of Winfrey's, puts it, "She has perfect pitch about what is good, interesting, and relevant." It takes a certain kind of brilliance to see that launching the talk-show careers of Dr. Phil and Rachael Ray might go beyond being simply relevant, in Iger's phrase, and deliver hundreds of millions in revenue. Winfrey's television show and magazine bring in about $600 million a year. Now she's poised to launch a 24-hour channel with Discovery Communications. Worth an estimated $2.5 billion, Oprah is probably the only person in media history whose name is also an adjective and a verb. —John Hockenberry

FASHION
Karl Lagerfeld
Designer // Chanel and Fendi

FROM THE RUNWAY TO THE EVERYDAY Since his name was bought by Tommy Hilfiger—now owned by the London private equity firm Apax Partners—Lagerfeld has managed to sell himself without selling out. He recently celebrated his 25th year as the head designer at Chanel, where he mixes Coco Chanel's classic lines with hipper street fashion, thus drawing new buyers without alienating the purists. He's also the principal designer for LVMH-owned Fendi. The Wertheimer family, which owns Chanel, and Bernard Arnault, head of LVMH, are fierce competitors, yet they set their differences aside to share Lagerfeld, who has enough ideas that his creations for the two lines look nothing alike. He also photographs Chanel's press kits and shoots fashion spreads for industry glossies. —Jeff Garigliano