Award-winning architect Zaha Hadid, whose designs included the London Aquatic Centre, died Thursday at the age of 65, a representative said.
A statement from her firm, Zaha Hadid Architects, confirmed that Hadid was being treated for bronchitis at a hospital in Miami and died of a heart attack in the early hours of Thursday morning.
Born in Baghdad in 1950, Hadid studied mathematics at the American University of Beirut before joining the Architectural Association in London in 1972. She went on to establish her own practice in London in 1979.
In 2004, Hadid became the first woman to be awarded the Pritzker Architecture Prize. She twice won the UK’s most prestigious architecture award, the RIBA Stirling Prize: in 2010 for the design of the MAXXI Museum in Rome and in 2011 for the Evelyn Grace Academy in London. In 2016 she was awarded RIBA’s Gold Medal for her work.
The London Aquatic Centre was constructed for the 2012 Olympics.
