Zaha Hadid

Zaha Hadid was an Iraqi-born British architect, artist and designer, recognized as a major figure in architecture of the late-20th and early-21st centuries. She was born in Baghdad, Iraq in 1950 and studied mathematics as an undergraduate and then enrolled at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in 1972. She adopted painting as a design tool and abstraction as an investigative principle to create an architecture that was regional in character yet modern and part of the international avant-garde style. She was described by The Guardian as the "Queen of Curves", who "liberated architectural geometry, giving it a whole new expressive identity". Her major works include the London Aquatics Centre for the 2012 Olympics, the Broad Art Museum, Rome's MAXXI Museum, and the Guangzhou Opera House. She was the first woman to receive the Pritzker Architecture Prize, in 2004. She also received the UK's most prestigious architectural award, the Stirling Prize, in 2010 and 2011. In 2012, she was made a Dame by Elizabeth II for services to architecture, and in 2016, she became the first woman to be individually awarded the Royal Gold Medal from the Royal Institute of British Architects. She died on 31 March 2016 in Miami, Florida, U.S., after suffering a heart attack. She was 65 years old. She is considered one of the most influential and visionary architects of her time.