Zaha Hadid was an architect who consistently pushed the boundaries of architecture and urban design.
Her work experimented with new spatial concepts intensifying existing urban landscapes in the pursuit of a visionary aesthetic that encompasses all fields of design, ranging from urban scale through to products, interiors and furniture.
Best known for her seminal built works, her central concerns involve a simultaneous engagement in practice, teaching and research.
Hadid studied architecture at the Architectural Association from 1972 and was awarded the Diploma Prize in 1977.
She then became a partner of the Office for Metropolitan Architecture, taught at the AA with OMA collaborators Rem Koolhaas and Elia Zenghelis, and later led her own studio at the AA until 1987.
Since then, in 1986, she has been a Design Critic in Architecture and in 1994 held the Kenzo Tange Chair, both at the Graduate School of Design, Harvard University; the Sullivan Chair at the University of Illinois, School of Architecture, Chicago; guest professorships at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste in Hamburg; the Knowlton School of Architecture, Ohio and the Masters Studio at Columbia University, New York.
In addition, she was made Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Fellow of the American Institute of Architecture, Commander of the British Empire, 2002 and Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2012.
She was Professor at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna, Austria, as well as at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and was the Eero Saarinen Visiting Professor of Architectural Design at Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut.
