Innovative Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid dies at 65

AP , Thursday 31 Mar 2016

Zaha
In this March 21, 2004 file picture, Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid poses in West Hollywood, Calif. Hadid, whose modernist, futuristic designs included the swooping aquatic center for the 2012 London Olympics, has died aged 65, Thursday, March 31, 2016. (Photo: AP)

Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid, whose modernist, futuristic designs included the swooping aquatic center for the 2012 London Olympics, has died at age 65.

Hadid's firm said she died Thursday of a heart attack in a Miami hospital.

Born and raised in Baghdad, Hadid studied in Beirut and London, where she based the architectural firm that bore her name.

She designed buildings around the world: a BMW facility in Leipzig, Germany; sleek funicular railway stations in Innsbruck, Austria; and the strikingly curved Heydar Aliyev Center in Baku, Azerbaijan.

She twice won Britain's Stirling Prize for architecture and in 2004 became the first woman to win the Pritzker Prize, known as the "Nobel prize of architecture."

The Pritzker jury praised her unswerving commitment to modernism and defiance of convention.

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