The Iraqi-British Zaha Hadid became famous for her intensely futuristic architecture characterized by curving façades, sharp angles, and severe materials such as concrete and steel. The structures she designed successfully accomplished what mystifies so many when they observe great architecture: She took the strongest materials in the world and manipulated them to form objects that appear soft and sturdy at the same time. Over the last two decades, her work has been honored by a long list of awards: In 2004 she was the first woman to be awarded the Pritzker Prize; in 2010 and 2011 she received the Stirling Prize, a British decoration for excellence in architecture; in 2014 her Heydar Aliyev Cultural Centre , like an undulating sheet of graph paper, won the Design Museum Design of the Year Award; and in 2016 she became the first woman to win the RIBA Gold Medal . Hadid’s projects, many of which transform depending on the viewer’s perspective, turn architectural convention on its head. The world lost a true visionary in 2016 when the 65-year-old Hadid died unexpectedly in a Miami hospital.

Michigan State University's campus was never the same after Zaha Hadid completed her design for the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum . Opened in 2012, the contemporary art museum appears frozen in motion.

Capital Hill Residence was Zaha Hadid's only private residential design. Located in a forest near Moscow, the $140 million project is half submerged into the ground.

Clad in reinforced concrete and polyester, the 619,000-square-foot Heydar Aliyev Centre in Baku, Azerbaijan, is known for its swooping façade.

The Riverside Museum, an addition to the Glasgow Museum of Transport in Scotland, cuts a striking figure with its zigzagging zinc-clad roof.

The London Aquatics Center was designed to accommodate 17,500 spectators for the 2012 summer Olympics. It’s undulating concrete roof features cutouts that allow natural light to filter in across the pool’s blue water.

The Guangzhou Opera House in China’s Guangdong province is shaped to resemble two pebbles on the bank of the Pearl River. The interior of the shimmering main auditorium is lined with panels of gypsum molded in flowing, organic shapes and lit with thousands of tiny lights that resemble stars in the night sky.

The Zaragoza Bridge Pavilion , built in 2008, doubles as a pedestrian bridge across the Ebro River in Zaragoza, Spain. The building’s exterior, comprising 29,000 triangles, is composed of fiberglass-reinforced concrete.

One of Hadid’s few projects that make use of cubic shapes, Cincinnati’s Rosenthal Contemporary Arts Centre , completed in 2003, is the first U.S. museum designed by a woman.

Hadid’s 2005 addition to the Ordrupgaard Museum , just north of Copenhagen, is constructed from black lava concrete and glass, which reflects its lush surroundings.

Hadid’s design for the Phæno Science Center in Wolfsburg, Germany—an immense concrete structure on stilts—won a 2006 RIBA European Award.

Hewn from concrete and steel, the National Museum of the 21st Century Arts (MAXXI) in Rome is built on the site of a disused military compound.

Galaxy Soho , a retail, office, and entertainment complex in Beijing, comprises four spherical structures clad in aluminum and stone that are bound together by pedestrian bridges.

The concrete-and-glass Pierres Vives building in Montpellier, France, will house three government departments.