Zaha Hadid

Hadid's first building was a fire station designed for the furniture company Vitra near the German-Swiss border.⁴ Her major completed works included the Rosenthal Centre of Contemporary Art in Cincinnati (2003) and the Guangzhou Opera House (2010), which were hailed as architecture that transformed ideas of the future.² She also designed the London Olympic Aquatic Centre and the Serpentine Sackler Gallery, a conversion of an 1805 gunpowder store in Kensington Gardens.^2,4

Hadid received the Stirling Prize and in 2016 became the first woman to be awarded the RIBA Royal Gold Medal in her own right.^2,5 Pritzker juror Frank Gehry said Hadid had one of the clearest architectural trajectories in many years.³ Juror Karen Stein noted that Hadid built a career defying conventional ideas of architectural space, practice, representation and construction.³ Her design firm stated she was widely regarded as the greatest female architect in the world at the time of her death.¹

Hadid designed the central building of BMW's Leipzig plant and worked with AECOM on a stadium for the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar.^2,7 Qatar's Hassan al Thawadi said the Al Wakrah stadium reflected national culture, being modern and futuristic while remaining true to Qatari heritage through design and materials inspired by traditional dhow boats.⁷ The Capital Hill Residence near Moscow, designed for developer Vladislav Doronin, is presented as her only private house, featuring a master bedroom rising approximately 117 feet above the ground.⁶ Aaron Betsky described Hadid as a demanding taskmaster who also showed incredible loyalty and support for her work.⁴