Well-known architect Zaha Hadid has recently been awarded the title Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) for her services to architecture acknowledged in the Queen’s 2012 Birthday Honours list.

Hadid was born in 1950 in Baghdad. She received a degree in mathematics from the American University of Beirut before moving to study at London’s Architectural Association School of Architecture. After graduation, she worked with her former teachers, Rem Koolhaas and Elia Zenghelis at the Office for Metropolitan Architecture, becoming a partner in 1977.  In 2004 Hadid became the first female and first Muslim recipient of the Pritzker Architecture Prize, architecture’s equivalent of the Nobel Prize.

Having been raised in one of Bagdhad’s first Bauhaus-inspired homes and encouraged to enroll in London’s Architectural Association School of Architecture, the illustrious architect’s thoughts at the ceremony revolved around this relationship: “It is a tremendous honor for me to receive this award. I would like to thank all my colleagues and clients for their hard work and support. I am delighted that architecture has been recognized in this way. My father went to the London School of Economics in the 1930s, and everything he learned at the time is why I have always leaned towards the UK.”

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