Zaha Hadid’s first major piece of architecture in America
                      celebrates the urban qualities of the city. Report by Rowan Moore.
                      Photography by Michael Moran.

                      Downtown Cincinnati is optional. Like America’s railways, America’s
                      downtowns were once a powerful tool of industrial growth and
                      conquest, but today they no longer have a compelling reason to
                      exist. Cincinnati’s survives as a minority lifestyle choice and, by
                      default, as a refuge for those too poor to have a choice. It has
                      dignity and grandeur, thanks to some art deco towers and
                      monuments, a gridded centre and some hefty bridges, but it also
                      feels drained and under-populated, aspiring to the density of
                      suburbia.