Zaha Hadid

Zaha Hadid was an influential Iraqi-British architect, who pioneered architectural geometry by expanding the traditions of Modernist art into architectural space, as outlined in movements such as Cubism, Futurism, Constructivism, and Suprematism. Hadid studied at the Architectural Association, London from 1972 to 1977 and then joined Rem Koolhaas’ Office for Metropolitan Architecture. In 1979 she opened her own office in London, designing a flat in Eaton Place that won a gold medal from Architectural Design in 1982. She was not only the first woman to receive the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 2004 but also the first and only woman to be given the Royal Gold Medal from the Royal Institute of British Architects. Hadid's 2006 solo exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum combined architectural sketches, models, diagrams, paintings, animations and furniture into an eclectic retrospective of thirty years of design. Zaha Hadid had several collaborations with Galerie Gmurzynska, the last of which was erected just before her death in 2016 and stands as permanent architectural design and memorial in the gallery’s headquarters to this day in Zurich.