Zaha Hadid was born on 31 October 1950 in Baghdad, Iraq, and moved to London in 1972 to study architecture at the Architectural Association, after having earned a mathematics degree in Beirut. She founded her own firm in London in 1979 and gained international acclaim for her bold, fluid designs. In 2004 she became the first woman awarded the Pritzker Architecture Prize. Among her most celebrated works are the London Aquatics Centre for the 2012 Olympics and the Al Janoub Stadium in Qatar for the 2022 World Cup. Notably, the only government building she designed is the Port Authority Building (“Havenhuis”) in Antwerp. She passed away in 2016.
