Remembering Zaha Hadid: the world’s most famous female architect

The world-renowned architect, Zaha Hadid, whose designs include the London Olympic aquatic centre, has died aged 65 on Thursday. Hadid was an Iraqi-born British architect.

Hadid’s buildings have been commissioned around the world and she was the first woman to receive the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) gold medal in 2015.

She was the first woman and the first Muslim to receive the Pritzker Architecture Prize, winning it in 2004. She received the Stirling Prize in 2010 and 2011. In 2012, she was created a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire and in 2015 she became the first woman to be awarded the RIBA Gold Medal in her own right.

Hadid liberated architectural geometry with the creation of highly expressive, sweeping fluid forms of multiple perspective points and fragmented geometry that evoke the chaos and flux of modern life.

Considered an icon of neo-futurism, with a formidable personality, her acclaimed work and ground-breaking forms include the Broad Art Museum in the U.S., and the Guangzhou, China opera house.