Zaha Hadid Quotes

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.

You have to really believe not only in yourself; you have to believe that the world is actually worth your sacrifices.

There are 360 degrees, so why stick to one?

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'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.

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.

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.

The beauty of the landscape - where sand, water, reeds, birds, buildings, and people all somehow flowed together - has never left me.

I have always appreciated those who dare to experiment with materials and proportions.

Architecture is how the person places herself in the space. Fashion is about how you place the object on the person.

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.

Yes, I'm a feminist, because I see all women as smart, gifted and tough.

I think about architecture all the time. That's the problem. But I've always been like that. I dream it sometimes.

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 really believe in the idea of the future.

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 am eccentric, I admit it, but I am not a nutcase.

A brilliant design will always benefit from the input of others.

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.

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.

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.

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 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

I am equally proud of all of my architectural projects. It's always rewarding to see an ambitious design become reality.

You have to be very focused and work very hard, but it is not about working hard without knowing what your aim is!

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.

I don't particularly like showing furniture on pedestals, but for whatever reasons you always have to in museums.

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.

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.

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.

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.

People say I design architectural icons. If I design a building and it becomes an icon, that's ok.

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.

Would they call me a diva if I were a guy?

Education, housing and hospitals are the most important things for society.

I don't like the masculine style, jeans. I like issey miyake... and black dresses.

Too many are too obsessed by method. it becomes a dogma.

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.

Being Iraqi taught me to be very cautious.

For a woman to go out alone into architecture is still very, very hard. It's still a man's world.

Indeed, our designs become more ambitious as we see the new possibilities created by the technology of other industries.

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.

The world is looking more and more segmented, the difference between people is becoming greater.

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.

All the privileged can travel, see different worlds, not everyone can. I think it is important for people to have an interesting locale nearby.

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.

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.

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.

No. I don't have the patience, and I'm not very tactful. People say I can be frightening.