Born in Baghdad to Iraqi parents, British architect Zaha Hadid left Iraq for the American University of Beirut at the age of 17. She subsequently trained as an architect in London, which later became her home. Despite a decorated career in her field since opening her own practice in 1980, she initially had to wait six years to see one of her designs make the transition from the drawing board to the physical world. Today, she had designed buildings around the world, in Europe, Asia, the Middle East and the Americas, winning a slew of awards, including the Pritzker Prize, the most prestigious in modern architecture, in 2004.

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See also: Zaha Hadid and the 21st-century Museum