Zaha Hadid – UK Architect

The British Architect, Dame Zaha Hadid was born in Iraq and is well-known around the world for her architecture. After her work on the World Cup stadium in Qatar in 2014, she followed it with some incredible designs on the new airport terminal in Beijing and the Bee’ah Headquarters located in Sharjah.

The British-Iraqi was the very first woman to get the Pritzker Architecture Prize back in 2004. In both 2010 and 2011, she took home the Stirling Prize, which is the UK’s most prestigious architectural award. Then in 2012, Queen Elizabeth II made her a Dame for her services to the field of architecture.

In 2015, she was the first woman to receive the Royal Gold Medal from the Royal Institute of British Architects. Arabian business also named her one of the 100 most powerful Arab women in 2016. Named by The Guardian as the “Queen of the Curve,” with her liberated architectural geometry and creative, expressive fluid forms, which evoke a chaos into modern architecture.

Hadid is a pioneer of parametricism, as well as, a believer in neo-futurism. Not to mention her bold and formidable personality makes her one of a kind. Her work speaks for itself, from the aquatic center at the Olympic Games in London to the Broad Art Museum in the United States.

The name Zaha is the female version of Tzach, which means “clear, fresh, clean, pure, or innocent” in Hebrew. While others believe that the name is derived from the Arabic zahra blossom or flower, that is from the word zahara meaning “to blossom”.