The family and friends of one of Britain's most successful architects are locked in a legal battle for control of the £67million fortune she left in her will.
Dame Zaha Hadid, who designed the London Aquatics Centre and the 2022 Qatar World Cup Al Wakrah Stadium, left the huge windfall after she died aged 65 in 2016.
The majority of the cash was placed into a trust and she appointed four executors to control it - business partner Patrik Schumacher, her 'extremely close' niece Rana Hadid, 55, stained-glass artist friend Brian Clarke, 65, and Tory peer Lord Peter Palumbo, 83.
Mr Schumacher has now launched a High Court bid to remove the others as executors and take sole control after claiming they are treating him with 'unjustified hostility' since he made a speech in 2016 advocating abolishing social housing in city centres and selling off much of Hyde Park for housing.
The 57-year-old also claims the trio have so much 'personal animosity' towards him that they blocked him from speaking at Dame Zaha's memorial service at St Paul's Cathedral.
Patrik Schumacher, left, 57, has launched a bid to remove three co-executors of architects Dame Zaha Hadid's estate claiming they are treating him with 'animosity' and are 'marginalising' him
Mr Schumacher, originally from Germany, said they have hampered his ability to run Dame Zaha's architectural trading company Zaha Hadid Ltd by ordering millions to be transferred out of the business to another part of the estate.
He asked the court to replace them with 'independent solicitors who are fit and proper persons'.
Mr Schumacher made headlines in 2016 for a controversial speech at the World Architecture Festival in Berlin where he suggested abolishing social housing in city centres, privatising public spaces and selling off most of Hyde Park in London for housing.
He was heavily criticised, with London Mayor Sadiq Khan branding him 'plain wrong', and the speech caused the other executors to 'distance themselves from him' to 'preserve the Hadid brand'.
Ms Hadid, Lord Palumbo and Mr Clarke deny having any personal dislike of Mr Schumacher and say they did not block him from speaking at St Paul's.
The court heard they claimed their relationship with him was 'difficult' but had not 'irretrievably broken down', although they added if anyone should be removed as an executor of the Hadid estate it should be Mr Schumacher.
Dame Zaha was unmarried and childless when she died of a heart attack, aged 65, in March 2016.
In 2012, she was made a dame for services to architecture and in 2015 she became the first and only woman to be awarded the Royal Gold Medal from the Royal Institute of British Architects.
She worked on buildings around the globe including the MAXXI Museum in Italy, the Guangzhou Opera House in China and the Heydar Aliyev Centre in Azerbaijan.
In her will, she left a number of cash gifts, including £500,000 to Rana and another £500,000 to Mr Schumacher.
One of the trio battling Mr Schumacher is Tory peer and architecture lover Lord Peter Palumbo, who is close with several Royals and is pictured left with Princess Diana in 1994, while another is Dame Zaha's niece Rana, 55, right, who is also an architect
The bulk of her wealth however went into the trust and in a letter of wishes she detailed how she wanted Mr Schumacher to assume 'control' of Zaha Hadid Ltd and to 'benefit from at least 50 per cent' of its income and capital.
Lawyers for Ms Hadid, Lord Palumbo and Mr Clarke told London's High Court that relations between them and Mr Schumacher became 'difficult' when he hit the headlines in November 2016 after making the 'controversial and provocative' speech.
In documents put before the court, Richard Wilson QC, representing Mr Schumacher, said since the speech the other executors 'have improperly allowed their personal animosity towards and resentment of Mr Schumacher to influence their decision making'.
He claims they have acted with 'unjustified hostility' to exert more control over Zaha Hadid Ltd at board level, as well as moving £4.5m out of the company and into another part of the estate.
Mr Wilson told the High Court that ill-feeling from the trio towards Mr Schumacher goes back further after they all spoke at Dame Zaha's memorial service and he was 'blocked'.
But Elspeth Talbot Rice QC, for Rana, Mr Clarke and Lord Palumbo, denied the allegations, saying the three 'have not acted and do not now act with any hostility or animosity towards Mr Schumacher'.
Patrik Schumacher
Mr Schumacher is the late Dame's business partner and still runs her firm Zaha Hadid Architects, based in Clerkenwell, London.
The 57-year-old was born in Germany and started working for Dame Zaha in 1988 while still a student, helping her create a building for Swiss furniture firm Vitra.
After completing his studies at the University of Stuttgart, he rejoined Dame Zaha and was made a co-partner of her business in the late 1990s.
He also teamed up with her to teach architecture classes at Harvard, Yale and Columbia universities in the US while he founded a laboratory at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London.
Rana Hadid
Ms Hadid, 55, is also an architect and enjoyed a close relationship with her aunt.
She first met her in Beirut, Lebanon, aged five when Dame Zaha came to study at the American university there and has previously spoken about how her aunt brought 'love, magic and laughter' wherever she went.
After the Dame's death in 2016, Ms Hadid revealed how she was 'brutally honest' and sometimes quite critical, but this was part of her attempts to 'push her to be the best that she could be'.
Brian Clarke
Renowned stained-glass artist Mr Clarke, 65, was born in Oldham to a coal mining family.
He began his own stained-glass studio in Preston in the early 1970s and went on to study the practice in Rome, Paris and Germany.
His works are on show in museums around the world including London's Tate galleries and the Victoria & Albert Museum, the Corning Museum of Glass in New York and Tokyo's Seibu Museum of Art.
He has also collaborated with architects around the globe, creating pieces for the Shard, Stansted Airport, Linkoping Cathedral in Sweden, King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and stage sets for Sir Paul McCartney and the Dutch National Ballet.
Lord Peter Palumbo
Lord Palumbo, 83, is a property developer, art collector, former chairman of the Arts Council of Great Britain.
He attended Eton and studied law at Oxford University and developed a passion for architecture and
