‘Queen of the curve’ Zaha Hadid dies aged 65 from heart attack

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This article titled “Star architect Zaha Hadid dies aged 65” was written by Guardian staff, for theguardian.com on Thursday 31st March 2016 15.43 UTC

Dame Zaha Hadid, the world-renowned architect whose designs include the London Olympic aquatic centre, has died aged 65.

The British designer, who was born in Iraq, had a heart attack on Thursday while in hospital in Miami, where she was being treated for bronchitis.

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

A lengthy statement released by her company said: “It is with great sadness that Zaha Hadid Architects have confirmed that Dame Zaha Hadid, DBE, died suddenly in Miami in the early hours of this morning.

“She had contracted bronchitis earlier this week 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.”

Leading architect Graham Morrison said: “She was so distinct that there isn’t anybody like her. She didn’t fit in and I don’t mean that meanly. She was in a world of her own and she was extraordinary.”

Speaking from Mexico, Lord Rogers, the architect of the Pompidou Centre and the Millennium Dome, told the Guardian the news of Hadid’s death was “really, really terrible”.
“She was a great architect, a wonderful woman and wonderful person,” he said.

“Among architects emerging in the last few decades, no one had any more impact than she did. She fought her way through as a woman. She was the first woman to win the Pritzker Prize. I got involved with her first in Cardiff when the government threw her off the project in the most disgraceful way. She has had to fight every inch of the way. It is a great loss.”

The London mayor, Boris Johnson, tweeted: “So sad to hear of death of Zaha Hadid, she was an inspiration and her legacy lives on in wonderful buildings in Stratford and around the world.”

Hadid, born in Baghdad in 1950, became a revolutionary force in British architecture even though for many years she struggled to win commissions in the UK.

She studied mathematics at the American University of Beirut before launching her architectural career in London at the Architectural Association.

By 1979 she had established her own practice in London – Zaha Hadid Architects – and gained a reputation across the world for ground-breaking theoretical works including The Peak in Hong Kong (1983) the Kurfürstendamm in Berlin (1986) and the Cardiff Bay Opera House in Wales (1994).

The first major build commission that earned her international recognition was the Vitra Fire Station in Weil Am Rhein, Germany (1993). Her scheme to build the Cardiff Bay opera house was scrapped in the 1990s and she didn’t produce a major building in the UK until she built the transport museum in Glasgow, which was completed in 2011.

Other notable projects included the MAXXI: Italian National Museum of 21st Century Arts in Rome (2009), the London Aquatics Centre for the 2012 Olympic Games (2011) and the Keyder Aliyev Centre in Baku (2013).

Buildings such as the Rosenthal Centre of Contemporary Art in Cincinnati (2003) andf the Guangzhou Opera House in China (2010) were also hailed as architecture that transformed ideas of the future.

She became the first women recipient of the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 2004. She twice won the UK’s most prestigious architecture award, the RIBA Stirling Prize. Other awards included the Republic of France’s Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, and Japan’s Praemium Imperiale.

She was recently awarded the RIBA’s 2016 royal gold medal, the first woman to be awarded the prestigious honour in her own right.

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