Google Doodle honours late architect Zaha Hadid

Log in to Google today and this is the Doodle that you'll see in honour of Zaha Hadid.

Open Google in your web browser today and you’ll see a caricature honouring late great architect Dame Zaha Hadid.

Born in Iraq in 1950, Hadid spent much of her life in Britain and died on March 31, 2016. She was the first woman to win the revered Pritzker Architecture Prize on this day in 2004 and is renowned the world over for her futuristic designs.

She went on to receive the UK’s most prestigious architectural award, the Stirling Prize in 2010 and 2011. A year later, she was made a Dame by the Queen for services to architecture and two years ago became the first and only woman to be given the Royal Gold Medal from the Royal Institute of British Architects.

Hadid was a trailblazer in her field creating iconic abstract buildings from London’s Aquatic Centre and the Vitra Fire Station in Germany to the Heydar Aliyev Centre in Azerbaijan, which is featured in Google’s doodle. Its block-like structures were inspired by historical Islamic calligraphy and geometric patterns and the building has housed modern art by Andy Warhol and Tony Cragg since opening in 2012.

She also designed notable projects in the UAE, including the Sheikh Zayed Bridge, the Abu Dhabi Performing Art Centre and her final UAE project, The Opus in Dubai.

In her early work, Hadid visualised her projects through paintings that resembled abstract modernist art. She famously said: “There are 360 degrees, so why stick to one?”

Explore a selection of Hadid's early concepts here.