Glasgow transport museum's designer scoops major architecture prize

British-Iraqi architect Zaha Hadid won the 20,000 Stirling Prize last night for a contemporary art museum her firm designed in Rome. She is also the architect behind the Riverside Transport Museum, which is due to open next year in Glasgow.

The Stirling prize is overseen by the Royal Institute of British Architects, for work built or designed in Britain. Hadid was born in Iraq but studied architecture in London and established her firm there 30 years ago. The MAXXI National Museum for 21st Century Arts in Rome includes five main suites mostly lit by daylight, with a sinuous roof of controllable skylights, louvres and beams.

It is the third time Hadid has been nominated for the award but the first time she has won, although she already has the Pritzker Prize for architecture, another world-renowned trophy, along with a string of other awards.

It is hoped the Riverside museum, with its distinctive, metal-clad, zigzag design, could draw 800,000 visitors in its first year. It is funded by Glasgow City Council and the Heritage Lottery Fund.

A council spokesman said: "We are delighted Zaha Hadid's talents have been recognised. Future generations of Scots will be able to see a magnificent example of that talent for themselves."

Judges called the Rome museum a building whose calmness belied its structural complexity, designed to hold all types of contemporary art exhibitions. "This is a mature piece of architecture, the distillation of years of experimentation," they said.