Architect Zaha Hadid who became a Dame in the Queen's Birthday Honours List published today. Picture: Fiona Hanson/PA Wire

The architect of the Aquatics Centre in the Olympic Park has been made a Dame in the Queen’s Birthday Honours.

Baghdad-born Zaha Hadid has been awarded the Stirling Prize - the country’s top prize for architecture - for the past two years, and is already a CBE, but said she would still be nervous when going to the Palace to accept her latest honor from the Queen.

She said: “I’ve met the Queen on several occasions, in Istanbul and here in London, but of course this is quite a different matter and I’m sure one will be nervous.”

Hadid is the founder of Zaha Hadid Architects, and her work from the past 30 years has been the sobject of retrospective exhibitions at the Solomon R Guggenheim Museum in New York, London’s Design Museum and the Palazzo della Ragione in Italy.

The architect has previously spoken about her parent’s “unique” influence and their belief in education and said they would be pleased by the announcement of her honour.

She said: “I’m sure they would be thrilled. I know my brothers will be very excited when they hear the news.

“My father went to school in England in the 1930s, to the LSE, and everything he learned at the time is why I have always leaned towards the UK.

“London in 40 years has changed so much and it’s because people come to study here and love it.”