Fashion’s Favorite Architect, Zaha Hadid, Dies at 65

Sam Lane

On Thursday, futurist architect Zaha Hadid died at the age of 65. Hadid contracted bronchitis earlier during the week and suffered a sudden heart attack while being treated in the hospital.

Hadid was widely considered the most famous female architect in the world, for her gravity-defying, topsy-turvy (oftentimes surreal) architecture — from a cliff- hanging museum in Italy to the London Aquatics Center for the 2012 Olympics in the United Kingdom. Her designs were undoubtedly ahead of our time.

Born in Baghdad in 1950, the Iraqi-British architect was notably the first woman to be awarded the Pritzker Architecture Prize, in 2004. She twice won the United Kingdom’s most prestigious architecture award, the RIBA Stirling Prize, in 2010 and 2011. Her recognition sounded throughout the art world and also in fashion, influencing designers like Chanel’s Karl Lagerfeld, who once called her the “Coco Chanel of today.” The duo worked together on a large-scale installation for the 50th anniversary of the Chanel handbag.

“If you are lucky enough to know the greatest living architect, and to have her accept an invitation to do a project, it is magical,” Lagerfeld said at the time of their collaboration.

As a tribute, Yahoo Style has put together a look back at 10 of Hadid’s most spectacular designs.