04/02/2016
On 31 March 2016 in a Miami hospital, Architect Dame Zaha Hadid dies after heart attack.
Architect Dame Zaha Hadid, whose designed many of the century's most famous and controversial structures, has died aged 65.
Iraqi-born, this year she was the first woman to receive the Royal Institute of British Architects (Riba) Gold Medal in recognition of her work.
She died following a heart attack on Thursday in a Miami hospital, where she was being treated for bronchitis.
Her designs have been commissioned around the world, including the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, Germany, USA, S. Korea, Dubai, Baghdad, China, Azerbaijan and many more.
Dame Zaha Hadid was an extraordinary human being. She was not only one of Britain's greatest architects, but one of the world's great architects of the 21st Century and late 20th Century.
She was most famous in the UK for the Aquatic Center for the 2012 Olympic Games and for Maggie's Centers in Scotland.
She won the Stirling Prize for architecture twice and was the first woman to win the Pritzker Prize for architecture - Dame Zaha was an extraordinary woman considering where she came from and what she made of her career.
It was very much a man's world but she was determined to shape it and bend into the way she saw it, into Zaha Hadid's world.
Her architecture was modern and futuristic with very noticeable sensuous lines, she brought a femininity to Modernism.
Dame Zaha always had a problem in Britain to be taken as seriously as she should have been.
People tried to knock her quite a lot and she didn't get the commissions she thought she should. She was very frustrated by that especially as she traded very well overseas. I don't know what the reason for that is but it wasn't because she wasn't a great architect.
Her legacy is to prove what can be done; that you can be a Baghdad-born British citizen who can cut through all the red tape, all the machismo, all the macho behavior and become an internationally-respected architect who creates buildings which will stand the test of time.
And Dame Zaha will be seen as a leading light for any architect, especially female architects who have come from abroad and are living in Britain, to show that they can succeed in this country even through all the brickbats you receive along the way. Read article on www.voicesforiraq.com
