On graduating from the Architectural Association in London in 1972, she joined Rem Koolhaas and Elia Zenghelis, at the Office for Metropolitan Architecture in Rotterdam. After establishing her own firm in 1979, for a substantial amount of time Dame Zaha Hadid was well known for her theoretical projects such as The Peak in Hong Kong (1983), the Kurfürstendamm in Berlin (1986) and the Cardiff Bay Opera House in Wales (1994). As well-received as these were, it was not until her first major built commission, the Vitra Fire Station project in 1993 that she catapulted to worldwide fame. From then on, there was no looking back. The next decade also saw technology catch up with Hadid’s imagination so to speak. In the new millennia, the emergence of various parametric modelling software and advances in structural engineering technology made realistically possible the fantastic design concepts that the firm has time & again dreamed up of.