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.
Zaha Hadid
What's nice about concrete is that it looks unfinished.
Architecture is how the person places herself in the space. Fashion is about how you place the object on the person.
Architecture is unnecessarily difficult. It's very tough.
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.
I have always appreciated designers who dare to reinterpret fabrics and proportions, so I follow the Japanese and Belgian designers. The pieces are so animated. When they lie still, they are one thing, but once you stand them up or wear them, they become something else.
I really believe in the idea of the future.
I am sure that as a woman I can do a very good skyscraper.
I will never give myself the luxury of thinking, 'I've made it.'
It's very important that historic cities are allowed to reinvent their future.
I used to not like being called a 'woman architect': I'm an architect, not just a woman architect. Guys used to tap me on the head and say, 'You are okay for a girl.' But I see the incredible amount of need from other women for reassurance that it could be done, so I don't mind that at all.
If you think about making a city that is much more porous, many accessible spaces, that is a political position, because you don't fortify, you open it up so that many people can use it.
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.
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.
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.
Like men, women have to be diligent and work hard.
I think about architecture all the time. That's the problem. But I've always been like that. I dream it sometimes.
Education, housing and hospitals are the most important things for society.
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.
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.
I am equally proud of all of my architectural projects. It's always rewarding to see an ambitious design become reality.
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.
When I taught, all my best students were women.
In hospital, people should be able to have time to themselves.
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.
If I wanted to do clothes or if I wanted to make a building or design a choreography, you are able to do that - they are all under a similar kind of design umbrella.
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.
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.
Men think a woman should not have an opinion.
My father was a socialist, so he would have thought that I shouldn't be a dame.
Obviously for some people there is a big connection between music and the way you can create a space.
My buildings are not particularly expensive. It is not a tin shed. If you want a tinny car, you pay for that.
People say I design architectural icons. If I design a building and it becomes an icon, that's ok.
I was always unusual-looking; I wouldn't say beautiful.
Life in the Middle East is quite different from other places.
As a woman, you're not accessible to every world.
Half of architecture students are women, and you see respected, established female architects all the time.
I find industrial cities exciting. I like their toughness.
Would they call me a diva if I were a guy?
Being Iraqi taught me to be very cautious.
I like music. Country, hip-hop, R&B, sometimes classical.
I made a decision when I was in school that I'd have a lot of male friends.
I think that the training of architects allows you to see what will happen ten years ahead of time, or twenty. It's not guessing, it's not intuitive, it's based on research - and we may be wrong.
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.'
All the privileged can travel, see different worlds; not everyone can. I think it is important for people to have an interesting locale nearby.
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.
I'm a pushover. I make allowances for people if I like them.
I have always appreciated those who dare to experiment with materials and proportions.
What's similar between Britain and America is the lack of good-quality civic buildings.
I really love Miami, but I don't think the architecture matches the city. It's a bit too commercial.
