Hadid, Zaha (1950– )

Iraqi-born British architect. A radical modernist and exponent of Deconstructionism, she became the first woman to win the Pritzker Prize for architecture, in 2004. She has had more success in other parts of Europe than in the UK, where many consider her designs too radical. She won a competition for the design for the Cardiff Bay Opera House, but her dramatically angled structure was never built.

Her works include the Vitra fire station in Weil am Rhein, Germany (1993), the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnatti, Ohio (1998), the Bergisel ski jump at Innsbruck, Austria (1999), the Mind Zone at the Millennium Dome in London, England (1999), and the Phaeno Science Centre at Wolfsburg, Germany (2005).

She studied at the Architectural Association in London and was a partner in the Office of Metropolitan Architecture with Dutch postmodern architect Rem Koolhaas. She has taught design and architecture at Harvard University, the University of Chicago, Columbia University, and Yale University in the USA, as well as the Hochschule für Bildende Künste in Hamburg and the University of Applied Arts in Vienna.