Zaha Hadid

Born in Baghdad in 1950, Hadid studied mathematics before enrolling at London's Architectural Association in 1972, where she rejected traditional drafting for painting and abstraction - a way to revisit Modernism's unfinished experiments. The Guardian later called her the "Queen of Curves" for liberating architectural geometry into new expressive territory. In 2004 she became the first woman to receive the Pritzker Prize, followed by back-to-back Stirling Prizes in 2010 and 2011. Her major works - the London Aquatics Centre for the 2012 Olympics, Rome's MAXXI Museum, the Guangzhou Opera House, the Broad Art Museum - redefined what large-scale buildings could look like. She was made a Dame in 2012 and in February 2016 became the first woman individually awarded the Royal Gold Medal by the Royal Institute of British Architects. She died a month later, on 31 March 2016, with projects still rising: Beijing's Daxing International Airport and Qatar's Al Janoub Stadium among them.