Visionary female architect, Zaha Hadid, has died suddenly in Miami.
British architect Zaha Hadid, designer of the London Olympic Aquatic Centre and the Guangzhou Opera House in China, has died of a sudden heart attack.
Her office released a statement saying, "It is with great sadness that Zaha Hadid Architects have confirmed that Dame Zaha Hadid DBE died suddenly in Miami. She had contracted bronchitis and suffered a sudden heart attack while being treated in hospital. Zaha Hadid was widely regarded to be the greatest female architect in the world today."
Hadid was the first woman to receive the Royal Gold Medal for architecture in her own right. She was awarded the Pritzker Prize in 2004, and was awarded Britain's most prestigious architecture awarded, the Stirling Prize, on two occasions, first for the MAXXI Museum in Rome in 2010, and in 2011 for the Evelyn Grace Academy in London.
Born in Baghdad in 1950, Hadid graduated in 1977, and joined her former professors, Rem Koolhaas and Elia Zenghelis, at OMA. She formed Zaha Hadid Architects in 1979.
Significant projects include the Guangzhou Opera House in China (2010), Messner Mountain Museum Corones in Italy (2015), and the MAXXI National Museum of XXI Century Arts (2009).
Hadid taught around the world, including at Harvard.
Peter Cook of Archigram, who nominated Hadid for the Royal Gold Medal, called Hadid "our heroine". He said, "For three decades now, she has ventured where few would dare. If Paul Klee took a line for a walk, then Zaha took the surfaces that were driven by that line out for a virtual dance."