Zaha Hadid’s Most Iconic Buildings

As the first woman to win the Pritzker Architecture Prize, Zaha Hadid arguably did as much as any of her forebears to pave the way for women in architecture. But even this will not be her most enduring legacy: With her sudden death Thursday morning, she leaves behind a host of landmark structures across the globe, from the London Aquatics Center, build for the 2012 Olympics, to the Guangzhou Opera House in Guangzhou, Hong Kong, to the still-under-construction Qatar stadium for the 2022 World Cup. These, her most memorable designs, outlive the woman who gave them life and form, and exist as testaments to the ground she broke not just for women in the field, but for the realm of architecture as a whole. They bear the smooth, undulating curves that defined many of her designs, existing on a massive scale that belies her ability to also design on the micro level (we’ve also collected her most essential furniture designs here). In cities around the world, Zaha Hadid’s contributions to architecture live on.