Dame Zaha Hadid

Presenter0:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young. Thank you for downloading this podcast of Desert Island Discs from BBC Radio 4. For rights reasons, the music choices are shorter than in the radio broadcast.

Presenter0:10

For more information about the programme, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.

Presenter0:34

My castaway this week is the architect Dame Zaha Hadid. From Brixton to Baku, her buildings seem as distinctive and compelling as their creator, exhilarating and yet calming, with sinuous, soaring waves clad in milky glass, walls that appear to grow soaring from the ground, and complex geometrics that toy with conventional notions of structure and form. She's won all the top awards going, and each new commission excites fevered interest. She is part of an elite strata of designers. Some people call them starkitects. But her present day status at the very pinnacle of her profession did not come quickly or easily. First, she taught for ten years and through the nineteen nineties designed endless structures that never got built. It's almost as if technology has had to catch up with the ideas in her head, and they've always been there. Aged seven, she was designing her own clothes. By nine, it was rooms in the family home in Baghdad. By the time she was eleven

Presenter1:37

She was pretty certain she'd be an architect, coming to London in the early seventies to doggedly pursue her aim. She's been here ever since. She says, As an architect, if you can in any way alleviate an oppressive situation or elevate a culture, then I think that you should so welcome Zaha Hadid. And you think then I mean from that quote it would seem that you think architecture has a lot of power, the power to do that.

Dame Zaha Hadid2:02

I think so, yes. Well, I mean, you know, I'm not in terms of the the formalism of the building, but if when you think about if you can gr make great housing, you can create streets, you can you can make libraries, concert halls, I mean, you can just add to the culture of the the place. You know, my view is that if you do public buildings some of us are privileged, we've traveled the world, we go here and there. But not everybody has that uh luxury. And I think it's very important to bring these kind of magic moments which we'll find through buildings or landscape or looking at something amazing to your locale. So people can take a

Dame Zaha Hadid2:40

Bus ride, a train ride.

Dame Zaha Hadid2:43

and go and be in these places.

Presenter2:45

Most people listening to us talking today will be aware of the sort of the fluidity and the sweep of many of the buildings you design. I think of the Aquatic Centre for the London twenty twelve Olympics, Glasgow's very distinctive Riverside Museum that sits on the Clyde.

Presenter2:59

When you are looking at buildings not not your own buildings, but other people's buildings, what is it that excites you about architecture?

Dame Zaha Hadid3:06

I think there's a lot of great stuff and of course there's a lot of rubbish. If you talk about historically, if you go to Rome you see all the Italian Renaissance, there's some amazing stuff. You can also go to N North America and see Mies or Corb or Frangeri. You know, historically they're very exciting. I think for me the most compelling is the spatial experience.

Presenter3:33

So something like a a building by Miss van der Rohe or Frank Geary. In Britain there still seems to be.

Presenter3:40

a sense of worry about contemporary architecture.

Dame Zaha Hadid3:43

Why do you think

Presenter3:43

We often let you know.

Dame Zaha Hadid3:43

We often let it go.

Dame Zaha Hadid3:46

All the current buildings being built are modernist between brackets, but they have a particular kind of modernism. It's very, let's say, restrained and it's uh what we call rationalism. The worry before was that you don't want to kind of affect the historicist value. But I think that view has changed. I think you know, the whole new work in the last thirty years was all about how you you fit in not necessarily nicely into the the existing context, but how do you create from the existing context some new geometries and ideas. Um when you go home to relax, what's your home like? I don't really relax. I relax in front of the T V or play music or something. My home is is it's really more like a loft. I'm living in a kind of a completely white apartment and uh

Presenter4:36

Is it true you took the kitchen out because it was ugly?

Dame Zaha Hadid4:40

'Cause in the middle of my living room and I I I'm not one of those people who kind of cooks and entertains at the same time. I don't like that.

Presenter4:49

Tell me about your first piece of music, Zaha. What are we gonna hear?

Dame Zaha Hadid4:51

It's a Brian Ferry song called These Foolish Things. Well, I I should not say this is embarrassing, but I used to sing, uh not professionally, so this is one of these songs I used to sing.

Speaker 45:04

The sigh of midnight trains in empty stations

Speaker 45:10

Silk stockings thrown aside dance invitation

Speaker 45:16

Oh how the ghost of you play

Speaker 45:20

This foolish thing

Speaker 45:23

Remind me of you.

Speaker 45:28

First half for dills and long X side and cable

Speaker 45:35

And the candle light on ready door Collin and the table

Presenter5:41

Brian Ferry and these foolish things. So, Zaha had the BMW plant that you designed in Leipzig has cars in the production line running all the way throughout the building, past offices where there are administrators, they're suspended above the cafeteria where people are taking their break.

Presenter5:59

It it looks revolutionary. How much when you're working for a you know a very big organization, how much do you compromise?

Dame Zaha Hadid6:07

In this case, actually, we didn't. I mean, there's always in all the projects you have to change things.

Dame Zaha Hadid6:14

But it's very important that your main idea

Dame Zaha Hadid6:19

doesn't get diluted.

Presenter6:21

And how flexible are you willing to be? For example, if a client was to come to you and say, well, I realize that your design shows that we need seven thousand pieces of individually engineered steel, none of which is the same as the other. The problem with that, Zaha, is it just doesn't quite seem practical. What would your reply be?

Dame Zaha Hadid6:39

You know, I try to kind of accommodate them.

Dame Zaha Hadid6:42

I mean, I think it's very important. People are spending money on these things. It's also very important to do something very good. And I think as an architect, I think you need to know the logic of engineering. I didn't know that at the beginning. And let's say I used to like building floating. But I know that they can't float. Now I might want to make the building look light.

Dame Zaha Hadid7:06

That they look floating. That's different. Then you devise a method of making very light way of landing. So the engineers have to sort out how that's done. I I used to work with a guy called Peter Rice, who's a brilliant engineer who passed away almost twenty years ago. And I was doing a building in Tokyo and

Dame Zaha Hadid7:26

In Japan because of the earthquake, the the building had to be the the legs had to come like a chair down. And it really bothered me and had no energy. And he was so focused, he spent five minutes there.

Dame Zaha Hadid7:41

He said, What do you want it to do? And I said, I wanted to do that. He said, Well, actually you can do more. You can skew the column. And so I realized that was also a lesson that you can do certain things which you don't think can be done. I don't know how to do it, but he was the expert. He knew how to do it. You taught for

Presenter8:00

around about ten years at the Architectural Association here in London, and now you're a visiting professor in uh in Austria and in the United States. What do you tell young, eager students about the best way to realize their ambitions?

Dame Zaha Hadid8:14

It's a skill, you know, you need to learn a skill, not a skill of making things, even thinking.

Dame Zaha Hadid8:22

And imagining is a skill. And so I think a student has to always challenge the topic constantly. I mean, you push the boundaries with the students all the time. It's a an amazing moment of experimentation. Let's have some more music, Zaha. Tell me about your second of the day. It's uh Umkul Sum, an Egyptian singer. It's called Al-Atlal, The Ruins. I used to live in Baghdad, and um my father was a very serious man. And he used to sometimes record it because these recordings were not easy to get. I think I was in 15 years old or something. And he was away. So I said, I'll stay up and I'll record it. And subsequently, I went to s listen to her in the ruins of Albaq in Lebanon in the late sixties and the early seventies. It was a just a magical moment. At the time, wherever you went,

Dame Zaha Hadid9:20

There was her music wherever you went and it was really uh it was amazing actually.

Speaker 49:26

Uh for uh

Speaker 29:28

Uh

Speaker 49:28

Uh

Speaker 49:29

Yeah.

Speaker 29:30

Turn the sun a year in a little

Speaker 29:42

Gaza Sarah Han.

Speaker 29:52

Yeah.

Presenter10:01

You were born at the beginning of the fifties. You said before the last piece of music y your father was a very serious man. He was a a politician. He was an important member of the National Democratic Party. Um how present was politics in family life to people?

Dame Zaha Hadid10:17

Well, it was very present, of course, because you know, first of all, there were all these ups and downs in Iraq revolutions in 1958, and you saw it first hand. After that, there were coups. But it was also a very important topic for my father, so we all talked about it. But I was a very curious child.

Dame Zaha Hadid10:39

I used to, you know, puss my parents all the time with questions. My father was very patient and he answered me he actually explained everything to me. Uh

Presenter10:47

Um I said in the introduction that by the age of nine you were designing uh rooms in the house.

Dame Zaha Hadid10:53

And my bedroom. I was kind of a modernist wooden

Dame Zaha Hadid10:56

I designed this mirror which was kind of a bit funny and like that. Like a diamond shape.

Presenter11:00

It's very unusual. I mean most nine-year-olds just get what they get.

Dame Zaha Hadid11:04

No, I know. But I was graduated from a children's bedroom to an adult bedroom. Um, you know, m I mean, I was quite fussy, so I didn't want this, I didn't want that, so my mother said, Listen,

Dame Zaha Hadid11:16

You do it. And I mean, that's wi went with everything. Uh, my clothes, whatever.

Presenter11:22

Yes, tell me about that. I mean I I mentioned that you were given a an allowance to design your clothes.

Dame Zaha Hadid11:26

I was difficult. I didn't like anything. So, whatever it was, I wanted something else. So, my mother said, Listen, this is your money. You go shopping, you know, in your budget.

Dame Zaha Hadid11:39

So

Presenter11:39

Yeah. But Zaha, was there anything wrong with it, or were you did you just want to be in control?

Dame Zaha Hadid11:45

I don't know.

Presenter11:47

Uh

Dame Zaha Hadid11:47

No, I wanted something else. I wanted something e more eccentric, most probably.

Presenter11:52

Right.

Dame Zaha Hadid11:52

But I think my parents allow me to be very independent at a very young age.

Dame Zaha Hadid11:57

and develop my own tastes and my own

Dame Zaha Hadid12:00

way of working and so I I was ver I'm very um grateful to them.

Presenter12:06

Let's have some more music. Tell me about this third one, then.

Dame Zaha Hadid12:09

Ah, the Beatles, hey Jude. When I was a like thirteen when they well, fourteen, when when they first started, uh remember my brother, who used to live in London, sent me uh records saying, This is the greatest thing now in England and, um

Dame Zaha Hadid12:22

And when I came to London that summer, all I wanted to do is see the movie, you know, A Hard Days' Night or whatever it was called. And uh that's what I wanted to do. So I had to drag everybody to this to this film. And I was always interested in the film actually.

Dame Zaha Hadid12:42

Yeah.

Speaker 412:42

Don't make it by

Speaker 412:45

Take a sad song and make it better

Speaker 412:52

Remember to let her into your home.

Speaker 412:57

Then you can start.

Speaker 413:00

To make it better

Speaker 413:04

Hey June.

Speaker 413:07

Don't be afraid.

Presenter13:14

That was the Beatles and Hey Jude. So, Zaha Hadid, in two thousand four you became the first woman to win the Pritzker Prize, considered architecture's highest honour. As you were growing up in those early years in Baghdad, in the nineteen fifties, what what was expected of young women? What did people think that little girls would go on to do? To become architects.

Dame Zaha Hadid13:37

Doctors. Uh, you know, I think there's a misconception about that society actually I mean, women were very liberated, you know. I mean, all my friends, I don't I don't have a single friend from Iraq who wasn't a professional.

Presenter13:53

And what about your mother then? What was her life?

Dame Zaha Hadid13:55

No, she was a housewife, but you know she was a very strong woman and very opinionated and I mean she was around in the thirties, forties and I think in that time it was maybe more difficult. She she was the one who taught me to draw. But she has also a great eye, she has a great taste. Our house was always impeccable and she was always very nicely dressed. My mother's side of the family were like honestly like Hollywood actresses.

Presenter14:21

You are a notably glamorous and flamboyant dresser yourself. You are wearing the most exquisite shirt and you've got brilliant jewelry. Do you think that you know, describing your mother there, do you think people can be born with an eye? Is it something you innately have?

Dame Zaha Hadid14:29

You've got

Dame Zaha Hadid14:37

I mean I think

Dame Zaha Hadid14:39

I don't know. I think it's also acquired.

Dame Zaha Hadid14:43

You know, you see things, you learn from people.

Dame Zaha Hadid14:47

My mother used to call me Carmen Miranda, you know, because I always used to wear funny things and wanted to do funny things on my head. And nobody knows Carmen Miranda, who she is now. Oh, yes, we do. But I was watching T V the other day and there was a Carmen Miranda, and I can't believe she thought I was Carmen Miranda. She used to say, you know, d w why are you like that? You know, just be.

Presenter14:57

Oh yes, we do.

Dame Zaha Hadid15:07

elegant and whatever.

Dame Zaha Hadid15:10

I mean honestly.

Speaker 215:10

Uh

Dame Zaha Hadid15:11

Both my parents wanted me to be ladylike. My father wanted me to play the piano, do ballet, you know, and they used to always joke with each other that I wanted to do something else, but, you know, my my father always said it's okay.

Presenter15:26

Uh so you were born into this it was a a Sunni Muslim family by tradition. It was a secular family in the way it lived its life, and you were taught by Roman Catholic nuns.

Dame Zaha Hadid15:36

Yeah.

Presenter15:36

Yeah.

Dame Zaha Hadid15:36

Nobody knew whether we were Sunni or Shia or Christian or Jewish. I didn't even know I was Muslim till I was six, you know, because Nanaz made us cross our hearts. But I discovered one day that my parents are not crossing their heart and I asked them and they said, well, you know, we're not Christian. And I said, but why should I do this? So of course I went to school and I said, I'm not going to do it. And they had to call my parents saying she's troublemaking.

Presenter15:39

Right.

Dame Zaha Hadid16:02

So honestly there was absolutely no difference. Sunnishia, you know, they were all the same.

Dame Zaha Hadid16:08

Um that's the Iraq I loved and I know, you know. Let's have some more music.

Presenter16:12

Zaha Hadith. This is your fourth choice. Tell me a bit about this.

Dame Zaha Hadid16:17

Harry Nielsen, everybody's talking about me.

Presenter16:19

And why have you chosen it?

Dame Zaha Hadid16:20

It's one of my favorite films ever, Finnet Cowboy, and I love that song.

Speaker 416:26

Everybody is talking at me.

Speaker 416:30

I don't hear a word they're saying

Dame Zaha Hadid16:30

I don't

Speaker 416:34

Only the echoes of my mind

Speaker 416:42

People stop and stare at me.

Speaker 416:46

I can't see the faces.

Speaker 416:50

Only the shadows of their eyes

Speaker 416:57

I'm going well the sun keeps shining Uh

Presenter17:00

Uh

Presenter17:01

That was Harry Nelson and everybody's talking. Chosen by you, Zaha Hadid, because you loved the film Midnight Kyboy. Also, you were talking about always being interested in film. I'd read that you used to have American Gigolo on a loop while you were painting.

Dame Zaha Hadid17:15

We were painting. Um what is it you love about

Presenter17:17

But some

Dame Zaha Hadid17:17

No, not this American jigger. You know, I unfortunately I get stuck on one thing. For example, music. I like one song and I will play it over and over again, you know, like forever till I get absolutely can't listen to it anymore. The film is the same. So

Dame Zaha Hadid17:32

American Driggalo, I knew every move Richard Gary made.

Presenter17:35

Um you spent time at boarding schools as you were growing up, both in England and in Switzerland. I mean boarding schools in England and Switzerland are not necessarily a natural fit for somebody who's highly individualistic and strong willed.

Dame Zaha Hadid17:47

Strong willed. I hated it. There was a useful side to it. I met a lot of people through my boarding school, and some of them became very close friends of mine.

Presenter17:56

I'd quite like to hear about the hating it bits. I mean, there's something about Zaha Hadid in a Swiss boarding school that I don't know exactly.

Dame Zaha Hadid18:02

It was really horrible.

Dame Zaha Hadid18:05

You know, the only thing that was, you know, nice was cross country skiing. I mean, that was the only thing and even that I didn't like. I don't know why I went to Switzerland. I wanted to go abroad.

Dame Zaha Hadid18:17

So I had this idea that, you know, I'm going to come to London, have a nice apartment at age 15, 16.

Dame Zaha Hadid18:23

Of course that's not gonna happen.

Presenter18:26

You had been you read mathematics at Beirut University. That was right at the end of the sixties. And you then came to the AA, the Architectural Association, in London. You started there in the early seventies, nineteen seventy two. You were taught for a time by well a very revered name now in architecture, Rem Kulas. Um what was the ethos of the place?

Dame Zaha Hadid18:45

Well, I would say from the mid-70s there was a an amazing buzz. All the interesting people in teaching architecture were in that school. So it also brought to it a lot of kids who were quite eccentric. And they had a the greatest chairman, Alvin Boyarski, was the chairman of the A. He's a was a Canadian and he was really amazing.

Presenter19:08

Let's have some more music, Saha. Um, tell us about this. We're on your fifth choice of the day. Why have you chosen this?

Dame Zaha Hadid19:14

Ah, uh, simply read. Holding back the years. Well, this reminds me of my office actually, in that period in the nineties. We know architects are crazy. We do all nighters. We used to do five nights, no sleep.

Presenter19:28

Do you think that alters your creativity? If you're sort of two nights into no sleep, do you go to a different place creatively?

Dame Zaha Hadid19:34

Well you are very exhausted so there's a bit of delirium sets in and I'm sure same with music and composing and things like that. You're thinking that if you stretch it one more hour, two minutes, you're gonna get better, you know? And it's crazy. But I I don't mind it. I had a great time.

Speaker 419:51

Holding that leave.

Speaker 420:02

When somebody

Speaker 420:08

Listen to the fear, it's gone.

Speaker 420:16

Wrangle by the wishes of

Speaker 420:23

For the arms of me.

Presenter20:27

That was simply read and holding back the year's memories for you, Zaha Hadid, of those all-nighters that you used to pull. How did you manage to stay up all night to to do the designs?

Dame Zaha Hadid20:35

Caffeine caffeine and smoking. Not smoking anymore.

Presenter20:37

Yeah.

Presenter20:39

And I noticed you're having a decaf today, so you've given up both of

Dame Zaha Hadid20:40

So you've given up both of

Presenter20:41

Yeah.

Dame Zaha Hadid20:41

And no coffee. I know, since there Yeah.

Presenter20:43

In nineteen eighty, you won a competition to build The Peak in Hong Kong. It was a very prestigious project. It was never built because the property developer lost the land amid the political turmoil. I mean, that was your first big win. How did you deal with the disappointment at that moment?

Dame Zaha Hadid20:54

Nippoli.

Dame Zaha Hadid21:02

I mean, I just I I mean, it was upsetting, but I it wasn't the end of the world.

Dame Zaha Hadid21:07

Do you like tough times? Are you good?

Presenter21:15

Is that just the life of an architect, or do you think that's just you and you?

Dame Zaha Hadid21:17

No, I mean, I'm I'm I think that it's a love an architect, yes, but I think I've had a a big share of it.

Dame Zaha Hadid21:26

You know, I think I I always say it's a triple whammy. I'm a woman.

Dame Zaha Hadid21:31

Which is a problem to many people.

Dame Zaha Hadid21:34

I'm a foreigner, not a big problem.

Dame Zaha Hadid21:38

and do work which is not uh normative, which is not

Dame Zaha Hadid21:44

what they expect. So together it becomes difficult.

Presenter21:49

I am struck by an occasion you given what you just say uh where that seemed to be

Presenter21:56

In sudden sharp relief it was you'll be very familiar with this, but I'll just sum up the circumstances for listeners. In the late nineties you won the competition to design the Opera House in Cardiff, but the decision was then made to build uh the Millennium Centre. How did that impact on your reputation?

Dame Zaha Hadid22:16

Well, it didn't happen right away. I mean the Millennium Commission

Dame Zaha Hadid22:20

with pressure from their locals.

Dame Zaha Hadid22:22

They rejected the funding for the kind of opera house. But, you know, two or three years later they commissioned someone to do the Performance Arts Center, which is more or less the same program.

Dame Zaha Hadid22:35

Uh

Dame Zaha Hadid22:36

With our local architect, no less.

Presenter22:39

Rodri Morgan, who was an MP at the time and then went on to become First Minister of Wales, said at the time that your design was like the shrine in Mecca. And there was a likelihood that the a fatwa would be issued on the building.

Dame Zaha Hadid22:48

Yeah, I

Dame Zaha Hadid22:52

Yeah.

Dame Zaha Hadid22:54

Stupid. I mean, it just shows you how ignorant politicians are.

Presenter22:59

You did say subsequently that it was an episode that stigmatized you and your practice for a good time.

Dame Zaha Hadid23:05

They're locked.

Dame Zaha Hadid23:06

Yeah.

Presenter23:06

What do you think?

Dame Zaha Hadid23:07

I mean I built a pool, an aquatic center and very nice project, but I felt similar for a long time. In in England, I can't say worldwide.

Presenter23:13

Right.

Dame Zaha Hadid23:18

I mean, the fact that I don't have a single project in London is a telling story.

Presenter23:21

Uh

Dame Zaha Hadid23:25

Uh

Presenter23:25

Do you think in the UK in general there is that view that they want to keep you at arm's length?

Dame Zaha Hadid23:29

I don't know.

Presenter23:30

I don't I can't say that for them.

Dame Zaha Hadid23:33

I mean, I don't know what it is. You know, I don't know whether I we we we we don't go out and try to solicit stuff or I'm not part of the gang or.

Dame Zaha Hadid23:41

You know, I don't drink with them in the pub or play golf.

Dame Zaha Hadid23:46

And also we are very controversial, you know.

Dame Zaha Hadid23:49

Whether it's nice or not, I'm always in the press about something going wrong and so I think that, you know, maybe people are, you know, worried or sceptical or whatever.

Presenter23:59

Let's have some more music, Zaha Hadid. We are on your Uh

Dame Zaha Hadid24:02

Uh Uh

Presenter24:02

Uh

Dame Zaha Hadid24:02

Six.

Presenter24:02

Uh

Dame Zaha Hadid24:02

Uh

Presenter24:02

Uh

Dame Zaha Hadid24:02

Tell me what it is and tell me what you drag it. Hotline blink is what I'm listening to right now. I don't know why. Yeah, I'm doing a tower there. Yeah, and um so I heard it there.

Presenter24:04

Oh, you dragged.

Presenter24:13

Yeah.

Presenter24:16

That

Speaker 424:20

You used to call me on my cellphone

Speaker 424:24

Late night when you need my love Call me on my cell phone

Speaker 424:31

Late night when you need my love And I know when that eye line blink

Speaker 424:38

That can only mean one thing.

Speaker 424:42

I know when that highline play

Speaker 424:45

That can only mean one thing.

Speaker 424:48

Ever since I left the city you

Speaker 424:51

Got a reputation for yourself now

Presenter24:55

That was Drake and Hotline Bling, chosen, Zaha Hadid, because you said you heard it recently when you traveled to Miami. Maggie's Cancer Centre in Kirkcoddy in Scotland was the first ever permanent project of yours to be commissioned in the UK. That obviously was a building with very particular needs and aims for the people who were going to use it.

Dame Zaha Hadid25:14

It's a great programme, the Maggie Center.

Dame Zaha Hadid25:17

They try to create a home very close to the hospital so that people when they leave the hospital, they they need somewhere to kind of rest, read a book, see a counselor, and it's very nice. In this particular situation, there is a hollow in the car park and it's completely grown like a garden.

Dame Zaha Hadid25:35

It looks like honestly like a like a landscape, like an art installation.

Dame Zaha Hadid25:40

So when you are in the room you see that landscape, the green and flowers and it's really fabulous.

Presenter25:46

You won the competition to build the stadium for the Tokyo Olympics. The Japanese government then cancelled the commission. They said it was on the grounds of cost. The creative energy in all of that that then comes to nothing, not to mention the man-hours. What proportion of your work does your company find in the end has to be shelved because there seem to be problems on cost? Because they're expensive buildings to build?

Dame Zaha Hadid26:13

No, but the Japan thing is not about cost.

Dame Zaha Hadid26:16

I mean, that's a their story, but um yeah, I mean my my view is that you either think of a building done long term.

Dame Zaha Hadid26:26

or you do something which you can demolish in ten years. And I don't see the point maybe demolish in twenty years. I don't see the point of doing a project badly done, has no idea. You need to actually invest in the city fabric.

Dame Zaha Hadid26:43

Now, a lot of the buildings we do are all public buildings. I mean, if I talk about the project in Korea, in two years, eight million people a year.

Presenter26:52

Are coming to visit. Yes.

Dame Zaha Hadid26:53

Yes. So I think it's very important that you invest in the quality of these buildings and allow for experience which people are propelled to.

Presenter27:00

Yeah.

Dame Zaha Hadid27:01

Uh

Presenter27:01

More generally on points of cost, when people come and and say to you, you know, I love this, I wish we could

Dame Zaha Hadid27:07

But you have to reduce it. But you can't reduce it by half. You can shave certain things off to make it work.

Presenter27:07

What do you have to do?

Presenter27:14

One of your most recent and entirely stunning works is is this three-building cultural center in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan.

Presenter27:23

You're building I mean, it is a magnificent structure. It's brought a lot of prestige already to Azerbaijan.

Presenter27:30

You will, I'm sure, be aware that the government itself and the regime in Azerbaijan is facing severe criticism from human rights organizations about their conduct. How much does that concern you when you're engaging on the building of a project in a country?

Dame Zaha Hadid27:46

It does, but I think that if you are doing cultural building for the people, I think it's a very different story than doing something else. I mean, I don't want to say anything about Azerbaijan, but the British government has an embassy there, they deal with them, so you know. But I think it's very important in any of these countries you actually contribute culturally in a positive way to that place, because there will be no change anywhere if there isn't that element.

Presenter28:18

Let's have your seventh piece of music, Zaha Hadid. Tell me about this.

Dame Zaha Hadid28:22

Adele, someone like you. And why have you chosen this? I think she has a great voice and when I was listening to it four years ago, it was the summer of the Olympics, as I told you earlier, I s turned to listen to the same music over and over again. So last summer was Adele.

Speaker 428:43

That you settled down That you found a girl and your married night I heard that your dreams came true Guess she gave you things

Dame Zaha Hadid28:55

Ah

Speaker 429:04

I didn't give to you.

Speaker 429:08

Oh friend. Wow. Why are you so

Presenter29:12

Uh

Speaker 429:12

Uh Uh Oh shit.

Presenter29:13

Uh

Presenter29:15

That was Adele and Someone Like You and Zaha Hadida. I have to say it's a it is a heartbreaking song. Are you a romantic person?

Dame Zaha Hadid29:24

Maybe.

Presenter29:27

You've never been married?

Dame Zaha Hadid29:28

Yeah.

Presenter29:28

Ever been tempted?

Dame Zaha Hadid29:31

No, I no.

Dame Zaha Hadid29:33

I'm sure when I'm eighty, if I'm around, I'll regret it, but

Dame Zaha Hadid29:38

No. But I'm not against marriage. I mean, for for people. I just didn't for myself it didn't happen.

Presenter29:44

What do you think the biggest misconception about you is?

Presenter29:51

'Cause you know people say I mean, I've f found you to be very solicitous and chatty and open today, and people say about you that, you know,

Presenter30:00

You're you're tough and you have a temper.

Dame Zaha Hadid30:03

I mean, it's just, you know, nonsense. I think it's my shy side.

Dame Zaha Hadid30:09

I mean

Dame Zaha Hadid30:11

Because I don't like overdo the flattery and complimenting, they almost think it's rude. Because they're so used to people.

Dame Zaha Hadid30:20

you know, as licking and

Dame Zaha Hadid30:22

All that. They think it's rude not to do it.

Presenter30:26

I mean, you clearly do think you are judged a lot more harshly because you are a woman in a profession that does not.

Dame Zaha Hadid30:32

I think so. And I am I have to say, I mean, I don't care half of the time what people say or think, so I do what I like. You know, people are not used to that. If somebody bothers me, I tell them to pull off.

Dame Zaha Hadid30:47

But I know I'm not nasty to people. I'm very nice to I mean, actually, I'm too nice. That's that's the the truth.

Dame Zaha Hadid30:55

Are you saying that with your tongue in your cheek?

Dame Zaha Hadid30:58

I'm taken advantage of all the time.

Dame Zaha Hadid31:01

I mean people who say these things about me, they don't know me.

Presenter31:02

Boys.

Presenter31:05

You have built, of course, this formidable professional reputation. You were made a dame in twenty twelve. You've recently been awarded the Riva Gold Medal. To what extent now?

Presenter31:16

Do you feel you are part of the establishment?

Dame Zaha Hadid31:20

I don't really feel I'm part of the establishment.

Presenter31:24

You still feel outside.

Dame Zaha Hadid31:26

No, I'm not outside. I'm on the kind of edge.

Dame Zaha Hadid31:30

Um undangling there.

Presenter31:32

F

Dame Zaha Hadid31:32

Uh

Presenter31:32

That doesn't sound

Dame Zaha Hadid31:32

And like a comfortable position.

Dame Zaha Hadid31:36

I'm not against the establishment per se. I just do what I do and that's it.

Presenter31:42

Now as you know on Desert Island Discs we send our castaways away to this island. I would like you to use your considerable powers of imagination to tell me what your shelter would be like on this island.

Dame Zaha Hadid31:53

Unless you live in a tent and get some fabric or some leaves. I have to find local people. Nobody around. Well, I mean, I'm shelterless.

Presenter31:59

Tad

Presenter32:01

Turn how many around my life

Dame Zaha Hadid32:04

How do I

Presenter32:04

I get to this island.

Dame Zaha Hadid32:05

Yeah.

Presenter32:05

Yeah. That is the great mystery, I'm afraid. For now, we're going to hear your eighth one, Zaha Hadid. Tell me about this.

Dame Zaha Hadid32:12

It's uh Sam Smith, Stay With Me. I love the boys and um it's my current like in the last year.

Speaker 432:20

Oh, won't you stay with me?

Speaker 432:26

Cause of all I mean

Speaker 432:31

This ain't love, it's clear to see

Speaker 432:37

But darling, stay with me.

Speaker 432:44

Why am I so emotional?

Speaker 432:49

No, what's not a good look in some self-control.

Presenter32:55

Sam Smith and Stay With Me in Chosen Zaha, because it's what you're listening to right now. Um let me give you the books. I give every castaway the complete works of Shakespeare and the Bible, and they get to take one other book along. What will your book be?

Dame Zaha Hadid33:07

I'll take um the lyrics New York by Ram Colehas.

Presenter33:11

Ah, right. That's yours then. And a luxury too, something just to make life a little bit nicer. Or maybe some photographs from my young days in Baghdad. A family photograph album then.

Presenter33:22

That's yours. And if you had to save just one of these tracks from the waves, which one would it be?

Dame Zaha Hadid33:27

I wouldn't go for the Nielsen one. Everybody's talking about it.

Presenter33:31

That's yours then. Dame Zaha Hadid, thank you very much for letting us hear your desert island discs. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Presenter34:18

You've been listening to a download from the BBC. You'll find more information on the Radio 4 website, bbc.co.uk slash Radio 4.