The news of the sudden and premature end of her life, at the height of her professional success, has been commented in the most relevant international and national media, shocking us all. She, who we had seen triumph in numerous competitions since her beginnings, with spectacular and beautiful architectural drawings that many considered unrealizable, left behind her, at only 65 years of age, an original and intrepid work, as patient and laborious as passionate and splendid, already carried out all over the world. Work that has also extended to so many related fields, especially to design in all its aspects.

These days the media have mentioned and shown many of her works; and also some authors of articles, such as Anatxu Zabalbeascoa, have recorded both the extra effort she had to make as a woman in a predominantly male field, as well as the spirit that allowed her to persevere without considering the delay of the commissions that followed her well-deserved success as a drama. Although it was not until the early 1990s that she was able to start building her award-winning projects, it is impossible to summarize her numerous works here. In 2003, the car park and Hoenheim North terminal in Strasbourg won him the award Mies van der Rohe, which was awarded that year in Barcelona. In 2000 and again in 2007 he built the Summer Pavilion at the Serpentine Gallery in London. The MAXXI Museum of 21st Century Art in Rome and the Evelyn Grace Academy in London have earned him award Stirling in two successive years, 2010 and 2011. And he has not been unaware of these outstanding recognitions from institutions in other countries such as France, Japan or the high school American Institute of Architects, having carried out increasingly larger projects.

Among the initiated it would suffice to mention her continuous formal and conceptual renewal, always breaking boundaries: from the first projects that made her be chosen in 1988 as the only woman among the seven so-called deconstructivists by the famous exhibition of MoMA and that breathed a liberating sharp and expansive linear geometry, to her passage between curved, undulating or sinuous forms, more symbolic and organic, or successive naturalistic layers and parametric forms. He may seem to have followed an intuitive impulse, but his mathematical programs of study at the American University of Beirut, prior to his architectural studies at the Architectural Association in London, are surely the ones that, as is often the case, allowed him to exercise the greatest creativity while remaining at contact with reality.

Among the numerous awards that since 1982 have received her work and person, which we can see on the website Zaha Hadid Architects, usually highlight those in which she has been the first woman to obtain them. This is what happened on February 3 of this year, with the Riba's 2016 Royal Gold Medal and, of course, with the Pritzker Architecture Prize, awarded in 2004 for her buildings, theories and academic work ; as she taught at the most important universities in the world. Having been named a Dame of the British Empire in 2012, she is rightfully so named, appearing now rightly in headlines as the Lady of Architecture. Therefore, in our field, these brief lines want to be a grateful memory staff and a recognition of the example and encouragement that for many architects or future architects meant and can continue to be.

Almost twenty years ago, in 1996, together with other professors and many other students of the school, I was able to see Zaha Hadid for the first time in Barcelona. We were celebrating the XIX congress of the International Union of Architects and Zaha was already among the greats. It was not usual then to see and hear them on the screens, so, to do it live, they came en masse from many countries around the world. Even if I was foresighted, my identification card carries the issue 3.651. Barcelona was taken over by architecture: the party -architectural- was in the street, as in our Sanfermines, with sessions in different buildings. So the organizers were forced to decide that the big sessions would take place in an indoor stadium. And there we saw him under the spotlights of the stage.

Together with Professor Marian Castro, who accompanied me, we were developing a European NOW (New Opportunities for Women) project at the school to promote and encourage female students, also raising public awareness and publicizing the work of Spanish and foreign women architects: inviting them, collecting documentation of their works for teaching, research and knowledge in general (then scarce or almost nonexistent). For us, the party also took that turn, and we were especially happy with their presence, as when the National Architects' congress that followed, taking advantage of the enormous response, paid homage to Carme Pinós, award National Architecture 1995, who was kind enough to respond to our invitation to come to Pamplona.

But in both, as much or more than her architecture, her attitude is of interest: intuitive, emotional, empathetic with the Username and the place; perhaps this is what makes her work more valuable. A grade of the Pritzker organization published by the Efe agency on March 31, as reported in La Vanguardia, states that Zaha Hadid will be remembered for her talent, creativity, commitment, loyalty and friendship. This is consistent with the reasons for the submission of awards that some conference proceedings of juries recognize in her works and with statements read in interviews with Zaha Hadid. Thus, in a previous writing, we collected from the magazine El Croquis nº 52: "I am not like so many other architects who are only interested in architecture...I believe that people are very important in one's life, both family, friends, and people you only know in passing. The exchange of ideas is fundamental, although sometimes they can be silly ideas. You have to be able to understand people, because if you don't, it's better not to be an architect."