Google Street View Allows People To Tour Dame Zaha Hadid’s Most Renowned Buildings Online

On March 31, 2016, many in the architecture world mourned as it became known that Dame Zaha Hadid had passed away. According to BBC, Hadid died of a heart attack on a Thursday in a Miami Hospital. She was being treated for bronchitis.

Though Dame Zaha Hadid is now gone, her memory still lives on as the first woman to receive the Royal Institute of British Architects Gold Medal in recognition of her work. She also happens to be the first person of Muslim heritage to receive such an honor as well. Needless to say, but Hadid must have designed some impressive architectural structures to earn the gold medal in the first place. All anyone has to do is observe her commissioned work around the world, including Hong Kong, Germany, and Azerbaijan, to see how phenomenal they truly are.

Now Google is making it a lot easier for the world to explore Dame Zaha Hadid’s architectural wonders as a way to honor her. According to reports, Google Street View now allows people to view Hadid’s most renown buildings online.

A virtual tour of Dame Zaha Hadid’s most renown architectural wonders have been made available on Google Street View, as reported by Huffington Post. These buildings include the Phaeno Science Center in Wolfsburg, Germany, Bridge Pavilion in Zaragoza, Spain, Olympic Aquatics Center in London, United Kingdom, Heydar Aliyev Cultural Center in Baku, Azerbaijan, MAXXI National Museum of the 21st Century Arts in Rome, Italy, Riverside Museum in Glasgow, Scotland, Hungerburgbahn Station in Innsbruck, Austria, and the Guangzhou Opera House in Guangzhou, Guangdong, China.

It should also be noted that Dame Zaha Hadid helped paved the way for minorities to make a name in architecture. Though it is getting better on its diversity, architecture — like many other career fields centered on mathematics and science — is dominated by men. Not only that, ethnic diversity is also lacking. Hadid, being both a woman and a Muslim, helped break down those barriers, making it easier for minorities to enter in such a field.

Dame Zaha Hadid really needed to stand out when it came to her architecture if she wanted to make a name for herself, and that is exactly what she did. Jane Duncan, the president of the Royal Institute of British Architects, provided a statement describing Hadid after she heard of Hadid’s passing.

“Dame Zaha Hadid was an inspirational woman, and the kind of architect one can only dream of being. Visionary and highly experimental, her legacy despite her young age, is formidable. She leaves behind a body of work from buildings to furniture, footwear and cars, that delight and astound people all around the world. The world of architecture has lost a star today.”

There is no reported family surviving after Dame Zaha Hadid’s passing. Instead, she is survived by a plethora of work not just in architecture, but also as Jane Duncan described, furniture, footwear, and cars. This includes her Liquid Glacial, a series of tables resembling ice formations made from clear and colored acrylic, the Moon System Sofa for B&B Italia, and the Z.CAR, a hydrogen-powered, three-wheeled automobile.

[Photo by Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images]