Dame Zaha Hadid

Dame Zaha Mohammad Hadid DBE RA (Arabic: زها حديد‎ Zahā Ḥadīd; 31 October 1950 – 31 March 2016) was an Iraqi-British architect.

She was the first woman to receive the Pritzker Architecture Prize, in 2004. She 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 2015 she became the first and only woman to be awarded the Royal Gold Medal from the Royal Institute of British Architects.

She was described by The Guardian of London as the "Queen of the curve", who "liberated architectural geometry, giving it a whole new expressive identity". Her major works include the aquatic centre for the London 2012 Olympics, Michigan State University's Broad Art Museum in the US, the MAXXI Museum in Rome, the Guangzhou Opera House in China,[6] and the Beijing Daxing International Airport, also in China. Some of her awards have been presented posthumously, including the statuette for the 2017 Brit Awards. Several of her buildings were still under construction at the time of her death, including the Daxing airport and the Al Wakrah Stadium in Qatar, a venue for the 2022 FIFA World Cup.

Awards and honors

Hadid was named an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and an honorary fellow of the American Institute of Architects. She was on the board of trustees of The Architecture Foundation.

She also designed the Dongdaemun Design Plaza & Park in Seoul, South Korea, which was the centrepiece of the festivities for the city's designation as World Design Capital 2010.

She was also on the editorial board of the Encyclopædia Britannica.

• 1982: Gold Medal Architectural Design, British Architecture for 59 Eaton Place, London
• 1994: Erich Schelling Architecture Award
• 2001: Equerre d'argent Prize, special mention
• 2002: Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2002 Birthday Honours
• 2002: Won the international design competition to design Singapore's one-north master plan.
• 2002: Austrian State Prize for Architecture for Bergiselschanze
• 2003: European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture for the Strasbourg tramway terminus and car park in Hoenheim, France
• 2003: Commander of the Civil Division of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for services to architecture
• 2004: Pritzker Prize - first female recipient
• 2005: Austrian Decoration for Science and Art
• 2005: German Architecture Prize for the central building of the BMW plant in Leipzig
• 2005: Designer of the Year Award for Design Miami
• 2005: Won the competition for the new city casino of Basel, Switzerland
• 2005: Elected as a Royal Academician.
• 2005: RIBA European Award for BMW Central Building
• 2006: RIBA European Award for Phaeno Science Centre
• 2006: Honoured with a retrospective spanning her entire work at the Guggenheim Museum in New York
• 2006; Honorary Degree from the American University of Beirut.
• 2007: Thomas Jefferson Medal in Architecture
• 2008: RIBA European Award for Nordpark Cable Railway
• 2008: Ranked 69th on the Forbes list of "The World's 100 Most Powerful Women".
• 2009: Praemium Imperiale
• 2010: RIBA European Award for MAXXI
• 2010: Named by Time as an influential thinker in the 2010 TIME 100 issue.
• 2010: Listed 42 in the New Statesman annual survey of "The World's 50 Most Influential Figures of 2010"
• 2010: Stirling Prize, the UK's most prestigious award for architecture for the MAXXI in Rome
• 2011: Stirling Prize, for the Evelyn Grace Academy, a Z‑shaped school in Brixton, London.
• 2012: Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in the 2012 Birthday Honours for services to architecture.
• 2012: Jane Drew Prize for her "outstanding contribution to the status of women in architecture"
• 2012: Jury member for the awarding of the Pritzker Prize to Wang Shu in Los Angeles.
• 2013: 41st Winner of the Veuve Clicquot UK Business Woman Award
• 2013: Elected international member, American Philosophical Society
• 2013: Assessed as one of the 100 most powerful women in the UK by Woman's Hour on BBC Radio 4
• 2014: Heydar Aliyev Cultural Centre, her design, won the Design Museum Design of the Year Award (1st woman!)
• 2014, 2015, 2016: Appeared on Debrett's list of the most influential people in the UK.
• 2015: Royal Gold Medal awarded by the Royal Institute of British Architects. (1st woman!)
• 2015: Nominated for the Services to Science and Engineering award at the British Muslim Awards.
• 2016: Zaha Hadidplein Sq., in front of the extension of the Antwerp Harbour House designed by her was named after her.