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My Father Was A Politician, And A Very Important Politician, And One Of The Leaders Of The Iraqi Democratic Party, Who Believed In Progress.

-Zaha Hadid

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My Father Was A

Zaha Hadid

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My Father Was A Politician, And A Very Important Politician, And One Of The Leaders Of The Iraqi Democratic Party, Who Believed In Progress.

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There Is A Strong Reciprocal Relationship Whereby Our More Ambitious Design Visions Encourage The Continuing Development Of The New Digital Technologies And Fabrication Techniques, And Those New Developments In Turn Inspire Us To Push The Design Envelope Ever Further.

In Iraq, Many Of My Female Friends Were Architects And Professionals With A Lot Of Power During The 1980s While All The Men Were At War In Iran.

Some People Really Live And Work Within The Same Doctrine, The Same Diagram With The Same Logic.

For A Woman To Go Out Alone Into Architecture Is Still Very, Very Hard. It's Still A Man's World.

One Has To Strive For A Very Open Liberal Society.

I Like Music. Country, Hip-hop, R&b, Sometimes Classical.

Architecture Is Unnecessarily Difficult. It's Very Tough.

A Brilliant Design Will Always Benefit From The Input Of Others.

It's Very Important For Cities All Around The World To Reinvent Themselves, And Glasgow Is A Good Example Of That. The Scots Are Very Nice. I Don't Think They Are Burdened By Their History.

All The Privileged Can Travel, See Different Worlds, Not Everyone Can. I Think It Is Important For People To Have An Interesting Locale Nearby.

Different Projects Give You Satisfaction In Different Ways.

There Are Some Very Similar Moments In The Early Work Where The Focus Was On Drawing, Abstraction And Fragmentation. Then It Moved To The Development Of Ideas. Lately It Has Become What Architecture Should Be, Which Is More Fluid Organization. There Has Not Been So Much 'a Change' But 'a Development'.

I Don't Think People Should Do Things Because You Know, 'i Am Turning This Age, I Must Go Have A Husband.' If You Find Somebody And It Works Out Then Have Kids, It's Very Nice. But If You Don't, You Don't.

No. I Don't Have The Patience, And I'm Not Very Tactful. People Say I Can Be Frightening.

The Conservative Values That Are Emerging, It May Not Effect Architecture Immediately But It Will Effect Society And That's What Worries Me.

What's Similar Between Britain And America Is The Lack Of Good-quality Civic Buildings.

Britain And America

With Products The Form Is Almost The Finished Piece, But With Architecture It Is Not.

I Am Eccentric, I Admit It, But I Am Not A Nutcase.

I Don't Think That Everybody In The Planet Should Have A Child. I've Never Had The Desire I Should Have A Kid.

I Find Industrial Cities Exciting. I Like Their Toughness.

You Really Have To Have A Goal. The Goal Posts Might Shift, But You Should Have A Goal. Know What It Is You Want To Find Out.

I Have Always Appreciated Those Who Dare To Experiment With Materials And Proportions.

Women Are Always Told, 'you're Not Going To Make It, Its Too Difficult, You Can't Do That, Don't Enter This Competition, You'll Never Win It,' - They Need Confidence In Themselves And People Around Them To Help Them To Get On.

People Say I Design Architectural Icons. If I Design A Building And It Becomes An Icon, That's Ok.

I Will Always Have Two Regrets. I Don't Have A Presence In London, And I Would Have Liked To Have Done More Work In The Middle East.

The Beauty Of The Landscape - Where Sand, Water, Reeds, Birds, Buildings, And People All Somehow Flowed Together - Has Never Left Me.

As A Woman You're Not Accessible To Every World.

Education, Housing And Hospitals Are The Most Important Things For Society.

Important Things

You Have To Really Believe Not Only In Yourself; You Have To Believe That The World Is Actually Worth Your Sacrifices.

When Women Do Succeed, The Press, Even The Industry Press, Spend Far Too Much Time Talking About How We Dress, What Shoes We're Wearing, Who We're Meant To Be Seeing. That's Pretty Sad For Women, Especially When It's Written By Women Who Really Should Know Better.

Life In The Middle East Is Quite Different From Other Places.

Know What It Is That You Are Trying To Find Out.

The Goal Posts Might Shift, But You Should Have A Goal.

When I First Came To Guangzhou In 1981, It Seemed Such A Hard And Dour Place With Everyone In Chairman Mao Uniforms.

I Used To Not Like Being Called A 'woman Architect.' I'm An Architect, Not Just A Woman Architect. The Guys Used To Tap Me On The Head And Say 'you're Ok For A Girl.' But I See An Incredible Amount Of Need From Other Women For Reassurance That It Can Be Done, So I Don't Mind Anymore.

I Am Quite Sensitive To Politics, Because You Know, As An Arab, An Iraqi, All Your Life, You Are Very Conscious Of It.

Good Education Is So Important. We Do Need To Look At The Way People Are Taught. It Not Just About Qualifications To Get A Job. It's About Being Educated.

It's Not My Duty As An Architect To Look At It.

Architecture Is How The Person Places Herself In The Space. Fashion Is About How You Place The Object On The Person.

The Current State Of Architecture And Design Requires Extensive Collaboration And An Investigative Attitude And We Continue To Research And Develop New Technologies.

For Many Years, I Hated Nature. As A Student, I Refused To Put A Plant Anywhere - A Living Plant, That Is. Dead Plants Were Ok.

Would They Call Me A Diva If I Were A Guy?

I Made A Decision When I Was In School That I'd Have A Lot Of Male Friends.

The Commission Process In America And England Is Different. In America, They Do It Through An Interview Process, And It's Really Based On Whether They Like You Or Not. I Mean, It's Nothing To Do With Whether You Do The Best Scheme Or The Worst Scheme.

I've Always Thought That Design Can Have Equal Importance To The Idea Of Internal Architecture. Professionally, Things Can Be Very Dogmatic - You Do The Architecture, Someone Else Does The Interiors, Someone Else Does The Furniture, The Fabric, Etc. But I Think Design Is All-encompassing.

Indeed, Our Designs Become More Ambitious As We See The New Possibilities Created By The Technology Of Other Industries.

I've Always Been Interested In Combining Architecture With A Social Agenda, And I Really Think You Can Invest And Be Inventive With Hospitals And Housing.

People Often Ask Me If I Consider Myself To Be An Architect, Fashion Designer, Or Artist. I'm An Architect. The Paintings I've Done Are Very Important To Me, But They Were Part Of A Process Of Thinking And Developing.

My Father Was A Politician, And A Very Important Politician, And One Of The Leaders Of The Iraqi Democratic Party, Who Believed In Progress.

It Was Such A Depressing Time. I Didn't Look Very Depressed, Maybe, But It Was Really Dire. I Made A Conscious Decision Not To Stop, But It Could Have Gone The Other Way.

I Can't Focus When There's Too Many Things Around. Whenever I Used To Go To The Office, I Used To Always Say, 'tidy Up.'

My Earliest Memory Of Architecture, I Was Perhaps 6 Or 7 Years Old, Was Of My Aunt Building A House In Mosul In The North Of Iraq. The Architect Was A Close Friend Of My Father's And He Used To Come To Our House With The Drawings And Models. I Remember Seeing The Model In Our Living Room And I Think It Triggered Something, As I Was Completely Intrigued By It.

When I Was Growing Up In Iraq, There Was An Unbroken Belief In Progress And A Great Sense Of Optimism. It Was A Moment Of Nation Building.

The World Is Looking More And More Segmented, The Difference Between People Is Becoming Greater.

I Don't Particularly Like Showing Furniture On Pedestals, But For Whatever Reasons You Always Have To In Museums.

I Am Equally Proud Of All Of My Architectural Projects. It's Always Rewarding To See An Ambitious Design Become Reality.

It Is Insufficient For Architecture Today To Directly Implement An Existing Building Typology; It Instead Requires Architects To Carefully Examine The Whole Area With New Interventions And Programmatic Typologies

Wherever I Am In The World, My Perfect Day Begins With Waking Up And Heading To The Beach Or The Pool Or Somewhere I Can Be Semi-comatose. I Just Wake Up And Go To The Sun.

I Love Driving Around East London - It's Always Full Of Surprises. Actually, I Don't Drive Myself - I Like To Be Driven.

There Are 360 Degrees, So Why Stick To One?

Contrary To Popular View, I've Never Been Patronized In The Middle East. Men Maybe Treat Women Differently, But They Do Not Treat Them With Disrespect. They Don't Hate Women. It's A Very Different Kind Of Mentality.

Too Many Are Too Obsessed By Method. It Becomes A Dogma.

Architecture Is Like Writing. You Have To Edit It Over And Over So It Looks Effortless

Architecture Is Really About Well-being. I Think That People Want To Feel Good In A Space ... On The One Hand It's About Shelter, But It's Also About Pleasure.

I Always Thought I Was Powerful, Since I Was A Kid.

Of Course There Is A Lot Of Fluidity Now Between Art, Architecture And Fashion - A Lot More Cross-pollination In The Disciplines, But This Isn't About Competition, It's About Collaboration And What These Practices And Processes Can Contribute To One Another.

I Don't Think That Architecture Is Only About Shelter, Is Only About A Very Simple Enclosure. It Should Be Able To Excite You, To Calm You, To Make You Think.

As A Woman, I'm Expected To Want Everything To Be Nice And To Be Nice Myself. A Very English Thing. I Don't Design Nice Buildings - I Don't Like Them. I Like Architecture To Have Some Raw, Vital, Earthy Quality.

I Really Believe In The Idea Of The Future.

You Don't Always Have To Show Art In What's Called A White Box; You Can Have A Kind Of Complexity Within An Exhibit Which Actually Respects The Art As Well.

If I'm In London It Can Be Different Than If I'm Somewhere Else.

They All Come Out From The Same Thing; All The Projects Are Connected Somehow.

My Work First Engaged With The Early Russian Avant-garde; The Paintings Of Moholy-nagy, El Lissitzky's 'prouns' And Naum Gabo's Sculptures, But In Particular With The Work Of Kasimir Malevitch - He Was An Early Influence For Me As A Representative Of The Modern Avant-garde Intersection Between Art And Design.

Architecture Is Particularly Difficult For Women; There's No Reason For It To Be. I Don't Want To Blame Men Or Society, But I Think It Was For A Long Time, The Clients Were Men, The Building Industry Is All Male.

Architecture Is Really About Well-being. I Think That People Want To Feel Good In A Space... On The One Hand It's About Shelter, But It's Also About Pleasure. The Intention Is To Really Carve Out Of A City Civic Spaces And The More It Is Accessible To A Much Larger Mass In Public And It's About People Enjoying That Space. That Makes Life That Much Better. If You Think About Housing, Education, Whether Schools And Hospitals, These Are All Very Interesting Projects Because In The Way You Interpret This Special Experience.

I Don't Like The Masculine Style, Jeans. I Like Issey Miyake... And Black Dresses.

Being Iraqi Taught Me To Be Very Cautious.

I Don't Use The Computer. I Do Sketches, Very Quickly, Often More Than 100 On The Same Formal Research.

Half Of Architecture Students Are Women, And You See Respected, Established Female Architects All The Time.

I Am Sure That As A Woman I Can Do A Very Good Skyscraper.

You Have To Be Very Focused And Work Very Hard, But It Is Not About Working Hard Without Knowing What Your Aim Is!

The Spirit Of Adventure To Embrace The New And The Incredible Belief In The Power Of Invention Attracted Me To The Russian Avant-garde.

Yes, I'm A Feminist, Because I See All Women As Smart, Gifted And Tough.

In Hospital, People Should Be Able To Have Time To Themselves.

It Would Be Very Interesting To Design Objects For Everyday Life, Something Where The Ideas That Are Expressed Can Be Launched Into Society.

Malevitch Discovered Abstraction As An Experimental Principle That Can Propel Creative Work To Previously Unheard Levels Of Invention; This Abstract Work Allowed Much Greater Levels Of Creativity.

Obviously For Some People There Is A Big Connection Between Music And The Way You Can Create A Space.

From My First Days Studying Architecture At The Architectural Association, I Have Always Been Interested In The Concept Of Fragmentation And With Ideas Of Abstraction And Explosion, Where We Were De-constructing Ideas Of Repetitiveness And Mass Production.

I Think About Architecture All The Time. That's The Problem. But I've Always Been Like That. I Dream It Sometimes.

When I Taught, All My Best Students Were Women.

The Paintings Have Only Ever Been Ways Of Exploring Architecture. I Don't See Them As Art.

People Don't Talk To You Properly. It's The Way They Talk To You; They Dismiss You. I Think It's A Combination Of Me Being A Woman And A Foreigner.

The Idea For A Building Or An Object Can Come Up Just As Quick, But There Is A Big Difference In Process.

I Really Love Miami, But I Don't Think The Architecture Matches The City. It's A Bit Too Commercial.

When You Are Overworked And Exhausted, There Is A Sense Of Kind Of Delirium And That's Why I Think Architects Do All-nighters And They Kind Of Do Those Deadlines. For Four Days I Remember Doing Four Nights In One Row With No Sleep. I Mean Nobody, Unless You Are Crazy, Would Do That, But You Are Totally Focused On The Project.

I Loved London. In The 1970s... It Was Very Exciting, Really Wild.

Of Course I Believe Imaginative Architecture Can Make A Difference To People's Lives, But I Wish It Was Possible To Divert Some Of The Effort We Put Into Ambitious Museums And Galleries Into The Basic Architectural Building Blocks Of Society.

In Terms Of Form, All The Projects Interest Me Equally, Although There Are Obviously Large Differences According To The Scale And Process Of Each Project.

Two Years Ago I Focused On One Apartment To See How Many Variations You Can Come Up With In A Given Space With The Same Parameters. I Would Work On This Repeatedly For Days And You See That There Is Maybe Seven Hundred Options For One Space. This Exercise Gives You An Idea Of The Degree At Which You Can Interpret The Organization Of Space, It Is Not Infinite But It's Very Large.

I Miss Aspects Of Being In The Arab World - The Language - And There Is A Tranquility In These Cities With Great Rivers. Whether It's Cairo Or Baghdad, You Sit There And You Think, 'this River Has Flown Here For Thousands Of Years.' There Are Magical Moments In These Places.

You Really Have To Have A Goal.

There Are So Many Great Galleries And Museums In London, But They Can Be Very Crowded During The Day.

I Have Been Interested In Fashion Since I Was A Kid. Then I Lived In London, Where It Was More About Costume And A Personal Statement Of Who You Are Than About Fashion.

I'm Trying To Discover - Invent, I Suppose - An Architecture, And Forms Of Urban Planning, That Do Something Of The Same Thing In A Contemporary Way. I Started Out Trying To Create Buildings That Would Sparkle Like Isolated Jewels; Now I Want Them To Connect, To Form A New Kind Of Landscape, To Flow Together With Contemporary Cities And The Lives Of Their Peoples.

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