BBC Zaha Hadid Who Dares Wins
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00:00:30The Russian artist Kazimir Malevich once said,
00:00:34''We can only perceive space when we break free from the earth,
00:00:38''when the point of support disappears.''
00:00:46The Bergisell Ski Jump towers 250m above Innsbruck,
00:00:50an instrument for high-performance sport,
00:00:53shaped with mathematical precision.
00:00:56Its creator is Zaha Hadid,
00:00:58an architect whose buildings defy classification and even gravity.
00:01:03Zaha Hadid flies in the face of convention and far into the future.
00:01:10Without that element of uncertainty, she says,
00:01:13that sensation of travelling into the unknown,
00:01:16there would be no progress.
00:01:29The Bergisell Ski Jump towers 250m above Innsbruck,
00:01:33an instrument for high-performance sport,
00:01:36shaped with mathematical precision.
00:01:39DRAMATIC ORCHESTRAL MUSIC
00:01:58In the last 30 years,
00:02:00Zaha Hadid has gone from paper architect to global megastar.
00:02:09DRAMATIC ORCHESTRAL MUSIC
00:02:14Her extraordinary architecture doesn't just stand,
00:02:18it melts, it slides, it whooshes,
00:02:22it juts, it moves.
00:02:32Her buildings make us feel like we're in another place,
00:02:36another world, even.
00:02:39A Zaha-shaped world.
00:02:44Zaha Hadid has won all the top architecture awards,
00:02:48the Pritzker Prize for Architecture and the Sterling Prize, twice.
00:02:57This year, she's even been named Businesswoman of the Year
00:03:00by Verve Clicquot.
00:03:03Born in Iraq in 1950,
00:03:05Zaha Hadid is now a dame of the British Empire.
00:03:09Zaha's story is absolutely fabulous.
00:03:12She is the greatest woman architect, not in the world now,
00:03:17and probably ever lived.
00:03:19And she's right here, you know, in London.
00:03:22You can touch her, well, almost.
00:03:25She does demand attention, and she gets it.
00:03:29She goes to the States and she has dinner with Obama.
00:03:33She is a superstar.
00:03:37She's a fantastic gossip.
00:03:39She loves to hear about people.
00:03:41She's a great mimic.
00:03:43She's a person that you wouldn't want to leave the room at dinner with
00:03:46for fear that you're going to find yourself as a subject of conversation.
00:03:49She is the nearest thing in architecture to the round table at the Algonquin.
00:03:54She relishes form,
00:03:56so form for her, whether it is something, form that she draws,
00:04:00or form that she wears, or form that she lives with,
00:04:04it's about an all-encompassing vision.
00:04:07She is a complete work of art.
00:04:11Zaha is, if you know her and if you understand her,
00:04:16a very inspiring person.
00:04:19But you have to have patience.
00:04:22You have to give her room.
00:04:25If you try to constrain her, then she will explode.
00:04:31The winner is a great architect who happens to be a woman, Zaha Hadid.
00:04:48I thank you very much.
00:04:50My old accountant, he used to always tell the tax people
00:04:55that I was a Dixie princess from the Arab world,
00:05:01not knowing that I came from a family who did not believe in the monarchy.
00:05:07But anyway, architecture is no longer a man's world.
00:05:11This idea that women can't think three-dimensionally is ridiculous.
00:05:19And I cannot say that alone.
00:05:22I have great people. I have a great partner, Patrick Schumacher.
00:05:25I have great associates with me in the office,
00:05:28who are a mixture of men and women,
00:05:31and they've all really contributed to this work.
00:05:37Yeah, an old school building.
00:05:39So that was a school building?
00:05:41This was an old school, but when we arrived,
00:05:43it was converted into a series of studios.
00:05:46Here is still the girls' entrance.
00:05:48The other side is the boys' entrance.
00:05:50You don't apply that rule today any more?
00:05:53Not any more.
00:05:54And we have now, we had one studio,
00:05:56and now we, of course, have the whole complex.
00:06:00It's an almost improbable success story.
00:06:03It took years for her career to take off.
00:06:07The practice started life in just one room with four people
00:06:12and now employs almost 400.
00:06:15It's a global brand with buildings all over the world.
00:06:20APPLAUSE
00:06:24And we broke through here. Yeah.
00:06:26There's a kind of reception.
00:06:28You want to see the main meeting room? Yeah.
00:06:33But where, I wonder, is Zaha?
00:06:35What kind of technology did you use to produce this model?
00:06:37Most of them are printed. Now we have our own 3D printer.
00:06:40Did Zaha come to this meeting? Yes, yes, yes.
00:06:42Actually, when she comes to the office, she's sitting here
00:06:45and is holding court, if you like.
00:06:49Ah, today it seems she's holding court at home.
00:06:53So what we want to know is the nickname.
00:06:55What do you call Patrick? Potato. Potato.
00:06:58He has many names, Patrick.
00:07:00Potato, Fluffy, Cappuccino, Sinkapoo.
00:07:05Would you mind interpreting? Choo-choo.
00:07:08No, because Patrick does not respond to anything.
00:07:11So you say, Patrick, Patrick, Patrick.
00:07:15And then ten times later, I have to have a name.
00:07:18You say, Choo-choo. And he says, yes.
00:07:22But Potato happened a long time ago, because he's German.
00:07:25And Cappuccino, because he's fluffy.
00:07:30I would say, where is Fluffy?
00:07:34So we spend our day, every day,
00:07:37looking for Patrick for at least four hours.
00:07:40Because he's off somewhere.
00:07:42Because he's never on his desk, or he's somewhere there.
00:07:47Yeah, we're all looking for Patrick.
00:07:53It looks like a showroom, but it isn't. It's home.
00:07:58Many of these things Zaha designed herself.
00:08:01She's loved playing with shapes, moulding her own world,
00:08:05ever since she was a child in Iraq.
00:08:08It was here, growing up in Baghdad in the 1950s,
00:08:11that Zaha Hadid's vision of the world began to take shape.
00:08:28It was a beguiling marriage of the old and the new,
00:08:31of tradition and modernity.
00:08:39Zaha, I'm looking at a picture of a little girl
00:08:43in a garden in Baghdad.
00:08:45It's full of mystery, really.
00:08:49Do you recognise her?
00:08:51Yeah, I remember that picture.
00:08:55What's she thinking, I wonder?
00:08:58I don't know. I must be occupied with something.
00:09:01I don't know what it was. You were.
00:09:03I was a very curious child. Why?
00:09:06You were curious about the world? About everything, yeah.
00:09:09So I used to walk around all day.
00:09:11I was almost like an only kid,
00:09:13because my two brothers were already abroad.
00:09:16So I used to wander around all day asking questions.
00:09:20So by the end of the day, my mother's had enough.
00:09:23So my father appeared back at home.
00:09:26And he was very patient.
00:09:28He answered any questions I wanted to know.
00:09:32Zaha's father, Mohammed Hadid,
00:09:34was the leader of the Iraqi National Democratic Party.
00:09:38He'd been educated in England.
00:09:40It was a cosmopolitan household.
00:09:46It's so extraordinary, this childhood of yours in Baghdad,
00:09:51because the way you describe it, it's such a civilised place.
00:09:55It was an amazing place, really.
00:09:57Great people, very open society, fun.
00:10:02You travelled a lot.
00:10:04Here's another lovely picture of you.
00:10:06Of me in Rome. In Rome.
00:10:09And then I've also got this picture of you
00:10:11with your parents in Rome here.
00:10:13Yeah, the same trip. I think...
00:10:15You looked like a child who was loved.
00:10:18No, I mean, I had a fabulous childhood.
00:10:21You know, I went to an amazing school.
00:10:24It was an interesting time.
00:10:26It was also, you were a Muslim girl in a convent school.
00:10:29In a convent, and the same with the Jewish girls.
00:10:32We were obliged to go to chapel and pray.
00:10:36And then I used to go home and wondering
00:10:39why my parents are not praying.
00:10:42And they finally told me that, you know,
00:10:45well, we're not really Christians.
00:10:47And so I thought, at the time,
00:10:50so why do I have to do that, you know?
00:10:53So we were allowed not to go to chapel for prayers.
00:10:58So we were brought up with that moment where, you know,
00:11:01there was an interest in education,
00:11:03there was also an interest in architecture.
00:11:06And so I think it was an interesting time.
00:11:12Architecture was seen as a means
00:11:14by which Baghdad could build a new identity.
00:11:18The city looked to the A-list of modern architects.
00:11:22Frank Lloyd Wright, Alvar Aalto and Le Corbusier
00:11:27were all invited to design plans.
00:11:30Walter Gropius's university building
00:11:33still stands as testament to Baghdad's belief in modernist ideas.
00:11:39I think it was a very interesting time.
00:11:43I think Zaha was given the sense
00:11:45that she could achieve whatever she wanted.
00:11:48It was a place in which modernity was just arriving.
00:11:52Baghdad, when she was a child,
00:11:54was watching Le Corbusier buildings going out.
00:11:57There was a Gropius building.
00:11:59The regime, before the dictatorship,
00:12:01was open to Western ideas
00:12:03and believed that women had a place in that.
00:12:06And that was something that was deep in her mind
00:12:09and she eventually picked it up and ran with it.
00:12:12Looking at the interior of your parents' house,
00:12:16this very beautiful picture of the world.
00:12:19Yeah, it's beautiful. The interior is very nice.
00:12:21And those wonderful tiled floors.
00:12:23Yeah, they're beautiful.
00:12:25Simple but beautiful cane furniture.
00:12:27These seats, actually, were not cane.
00:12:31They were made of steel.
00:12:33Wow.
00:12:34They were woven steel and painted gold.
00:12:37This is the summer mode.
00:12:39You don't see a carpet on the floor.
00:12:41No.
00:12:42In the winter, there'd be a rug, a big rug.
00:12:45It's interesting, though, because you're 8 or 9 years old
00:12:48and you already know the layout of the furniture in the room.
00:12:51Yeah, I remember this very, very well.
00:12:53I wanted things to be done my way,
00:12:55but I wanted an adult's room and I didn't want a children's room.
00:13:00So I had designed this room, which my parents made for me.
00:13:05And actually, it was a very popular room.
00:13:07So my cousin had one, my aunt had one.
00:13:10So the whole family had one of these rooms.
00:13:12You designed the whole suite?
00:13:14Yeah, it was not...
00:13:15Isn't that a bit unusual?
00:13:17I think maybe by 11 years old,
00:13:20I was already wanting to become an architect.
00:13:25In my generation, there were lots of women
00:13:28who wanted to become an architect.
00:13:30It was not uncommon.
00:13:32It was not uncommon.
00:13:34And there were some women who were in the older generation
00:13:38who were already, you know, practising in Baghdad and...
00:13:42Yeah.
00:13:43That's another weird thing for people,
00:13:45thinking about what people might think of Baghdad today.
00:13:48The idea that women were treated...
00:13:50No, I think what was interesting about that period,
00:13:53people had a kind of a... some level of freedom.
00:13:57There was no such a weird thing to do.
00:14:01You know, I thought I can design clothes, you know.
00:14:04So I designed clothes which didn't work, you know.
00:14:07But my mother would make me wear them
00:14:09so I can, you know, learn a lesson.
00:14:12But actually, what was weird, instead of...
00:14:14It was a punishment.
00:14:15But actually, my friends all loved it
00:14:17because they've never seen anybody dressed like that, you know.
00:14:20I would change the sleeve and make it...
00:14:22to cut it off or have a thing made which looked silly.
00:14:26They thought it looked silly.
00:14:28I thought it looked great.
00:14:30And my friends all thought it was amazing.
00:14:33I think the only reason I got away with it
00:14:35is because I didn't like anything.
00:14:39You know, I was always...
00:14:41I was always like, this thing itches me,
00:14:44this doesn't work for me.
00:14:46So my mother, you know, said,
00:14:49OK, I give you a salary, like a pocket money,
00:14:54five pounds a month.
00:14:57And with that, if you want, you can go shopping.
00:15:01Because she didn't want to be involved anymore in buying my clothes.
00:15:04So I, by the age of seven, eight,
00:15:07I can choose my own things.
00:15:09And I used to always...
00:15:12I was astonished by other people,
00:15:15that their mothers would pick their things for them.
00:15:18I mean, both my parents were very liberal.
00:15:21I didn't know that, I mean, you know,
00:15:23I wasn't privy to this,
00:15:25but they decided to let me, you know, experiment
00:15:29and see how far it goes.
00:15:31That sounds so like the Zaha we know.
00:15:34That sounds like you.
00:15:36Yeah, that's how I was.
00:15:37Yeah, and that's how you are.
00:15:39The only thing is that I was very shy.
00:15:41Well, maybe I'm still not.
00:15:45She may have been brought up in Iraq, on the edge of the desert,
00:15:48but in 1972, Zaha went from the Arab world,
00:15:52where modernists were admired,
00:15:54to London, where architecture was in crisis.
00:15:59Buildings which had once seemed like solutions
00:16:02to post-war housing issues now seemed like problems.
00:16:06The only conclusion that we can come to
00:16:08is to pull a bloody load down.
00:16:11Architecture was badly in need of new ideas and a new direction.
00:16:17There was one place, however, that had imagination and vision.
00:16:23The AA, the Architectural Association in Bedford Square,
00:16:29was an incubator for progressive ideas and innovation.
00:16:33It was this school that Zaha headed for in 1972.
00:16:39This most radical of schools in the world
00:16:42sits and sat at that time in Georgian houses in Bedford Square,
00:16:47and I think that's really indicative
00:16:51that we occupied a historic building,
00:16:55but in a very unexpected way.
00:16:58So it was literally a house of creativity.
00:17:02Just at the time that the British economy was really going down the drain
00:17:06and it stopped building anything anyone was interested in,
00:17:09it found itself with perhaps the most powerful
00:17:12and inspiring architecture school on the planet.
00:17:15The visionary chairman of the AA at the time
00:17:18was this man on the elephant, Alvin Boyarsky.
00:17:22The AA under Alvin Boyarsky was all about exploring differences
00:17:27right out to the sort of tentacles that they could go to,
00:17:31and so it was literally explosive
00:17:34because people were in competition, as it were,
00:17:37but in a way the energy went to everybody.
00:17:42It was very anti-design.
00:17:45It was almost a moment of anti-architecture.
00:17:48The focus was that previous ideas did not work,
00:17:52let's have alternative life.
00:17:56Alternative life meant experimentation,
00:17:59testing noise in a warehouse or converting an old bus.
00:18:04Students and teachers even set up a farm in Wales.
00:18:09But not Zaha.
00:18:15I didn't want to go to Wales,
00:18:17you know, and I wasn't going to do an inflatable bus.
00:18:21Some people did.
00:18:23I mean, the noise from that welding machine,
00:18:27welding that bus, is still ringing in my ear.
00:18:31Then they decided to lift it with a car,
00:18:34but it was still ringing in my ear.
00:18:37Then they decided to lift it with a crane
00:18:40because they didn't think about how they were going to get out of Ching's Yard.
00:18:44So they lifted it from a crane
00:18:46and when it landed on the pavement it just collapsed.
00:18:49All came apart.
00:18:52I want it, I want it, I want it, I want it.
00:18:56I want it, I want it, I want it, I want it.
00:19:03There were also weird things going on,
00:19:06doing workshops with the first year master tutor,
00:19:11making love with one of his students onstage
00:19:15and the boyfriend running around trying to kill him, you know.
00:19:20The idea was that you find your...
00:19:22Within all that mess, you will find your way.
00:19:26Oh, very 60s, very hippies.
00:19:28Yes, very 60s. And we did,
00:19:30because there was no-one else to advise us what to do.
00:19:34We had to go, if you were curious,
00:19:37we had to go to every jury in the school,
00:19:40every presentation,
00:19:42and from there suss out what is our next move.
00:19:47Zaha stormed through the school,
00:19:49trying out all the options on offer,
00:19:51before settling on two teachers whom she found inspiring,
00:19:55themselves rising stars of radical architecture.
00:19:58Any other questions?
00:20:00She was definitely clearly talented
00:20:03and favoured by her tutors Rem Koolhaas and Ilya Zengeris.
00:20:09It was clear from the beginning
00:20:12that she was on a kind of unstoppable trajectory.
00:20:17I mean, it was very clear from the very first moment
00:20:21that she would be a name in the history of architecture.
00:20:25I'm really eternally grateful to them,
00:20:28because they showed me a glimpse of what it could be like.
00:20:40It was here that Ilya and Rem led her
00:20:43to the pioneering work of Russian artist Kazimir Malevich
00:20:47and the Russian supremacists.
00:20:49Abstract and groundbreaking,
00:20:51it was these exploding compositions that most inspired Zaha.
00:20:57One of the triggers for Zaha's ideas
00:21:00about how space might erupt from the ground,
00:21:04how planes might intersect,
00:21:07comes from that period in Russian art.
00:21:10Her fascination for walls that grow out of the ground,
00:21:14of over-sailing planes,
00:21:16might initially appear to be unbuildable and impractical
00:21:20in a rectangular world,
00:21:22and yet, as we can see, these things do work.
00:21:25I mean, Zaha really is a painter.
00:21:28It's a pity that she doesn't paint any more so much as she did then.
00:21:34And, in fact, it was her painterly approach to composition
00:21:38that was kind of transferred
00:21:40into her three-dimensional architectural compositions,
00:21:45very much like Malevich himself.
00:21:51Malevich was known as a painter of abstract canvases,
00:21:55but by the 1920s,
00:21:57he was pioneering experimental architectural models
00:22:00known as architectons.
00:22:03Down with cupolas, he said.
00:22:05Let wedges cut into the bosom of space.
00:22:10I do remember this incredible project of Zaha's,
00:22:14which was a series of rectilinear buildings
00:22:17that were scattered at odd angles across London, around the river.
00:22:22And the plans and drawings were...
00:22:27..obviously Russian in their inspiration,
00:22:31but had been applied to the city we all live in.
00:22:36It was fabulous.
00:22:40London was the destination for Zaha's student project,
00:22:44which transformed Malevich's architecton
00:22:47into a hotel over the Thames.
00:22:51A version of the original painting
00:22:53has pride of place on her living room wall.
00:22:57And that's the Hungerford Bridge, isn't it?
00:23:00That's Hungerford Bridge,
00:23:01and that's a Malevich tectonic sitting on Hungerford Bridge.
00:23:04And this is one of the very early drawings
00:23:06where, you know, the actual tectonic is also fragmented or broken.
00:23:11So this is in this process of kind of like it's orbiting
00:23:14before it lands on Hungerford Bridge.
00:23:19The plan for Hungerford Bridge was something of a breakthrough for Zaha.
00:23:23It was a time of change, too, for Alvin Boyarsky and the school.
00:23:29So within three years, that whole kind of,
00:23:33what I call, metaphysical wanking has kind of...
00:23:37..not dissipated, still carried on,
00:23:39but Alvin, by the late 70s,
00:23:43shifted to what I always call a projected reality.
00:23:47He wanted to push for projects which eventually could be realised.
00:23:53But Zaha's projects weren't to be realised just yet.
00:23:57After graduating from the AA, she would remain at the school as a teacher.
00:24:03It's what we all wanted to be at the time.
00:24:05The culture that we were trained in was focused on experiment
00:24:10and on visions of architecture and cities.
00:24:14And most of what was being built, particularly in Britain,
00:24:17was pretty banal at the time.
00:24:19You wanted it to carry on.
00:24:21I think that's really it, that the research,
00:24:23the excitement of being at the AA,
00:24:26you didn't want to leave.
00:24:27Zaha took over the unit.
00:24:29It was a kind of... It had a reputation as Unit 9.
00:24:34So Unit 9 was first the unit with Rem and myself,
00:24:38and then, in the end, after that, it became Zaha's unit.
00:24:42Those ten years of AA teaching were, it seemed like 30 years,
00:24:47but it was only ten, were, I think, very instrumental,
00:24:52because everybody knew they were on the brink of discovering something.
00:24:57We didn't know what it was.
00:24:59It was not premeditated. We didn't know what it was.
00:25:01It was just... Everybody knew there was so much energy around.
00:25:05There was such a buzz on the staircase and the rooms,
00:25:11the whole punk thing and the fashion scene
00:25:14and all these costumes on the street.
00:25:16That was a... For London, that was a very exciting time,
00:25:19what was going on.
00:25:21You know, not in architecture.
00:25:23You know, I never thought of you as a punk,
00:25:25but, actually, I think you are a bit of a punk.
00:25:27But the whole atmosphere was about rebellion, you know,
00:25:31and challenging the kind of status quo.
00:25:34Nobody wanted to be normal, you know.
00:25:40But Zaha was not only teaching.
00:25:42In 1979, she founded her own architectural practice.
00:25:47She was teaching by day and drawing and painting by night.
00:25:53So, I used to go out every night. I never drank.
00:25:56So, I would come back, and I had this tiny news house,
00:25:59and I had my board there, my big painting.
00:26:03And everybody knew I'd be home after midnight.
00:26:07So, people would... I mean, Nigel, everybody used to honk the horn
00:26:11in their cars or motorbike or whatever,
00:26:13and go by at two in the morning. I was always there.
00:26:17You know, I can paint and talk.
00:26:19She would watch American Gigolo all through the night,
00:26:23over and over again, enjoying Richard Gere hanging from a bar
00:26:28upside down and doing pull-ups.
00:26:31But they were always behind,
00:26:33because I, by then, knew every scene in every of his movies.
00:26:37So, I could only turn around
00:26:39when I knew that my favourite scene would come up.
00:26:42But it was the set design of a Hitchcock masterpiece
00:26:45that really caught Zaha's eye.
00:26:49The other one that she'd have on repeat was North by Northwest,
00:26:53and in that, the mock-up of the UN building
00:26:56does look remarkably like one of hers.
00:27:03In 1983, when she was 33,
00:27:06Zaha won her first prestigious international competition.
00:27:13It was to design a clubhouse
00:27:15to be located on the mountainside above Hong Kong.
00:27:18Her design was radical, but potentially it was buildable.
00:27:23The Hong Kong Peak competition paintings
00:27:26were absolutely the sort of, you know, eye-opener of all time.
00:27:30Fabulous sense of colour, for instance.
00:27:33Her three-dimensional grasp is almost beyond everyday comprehension.
00:27:38This extraordinary, huge canvas,
00:27:41which evoked the quality of gravity-free building.
00:27:45The Peak was an explosion.
00:27:55Nigel came in and he said, how are you doing?
00:27:57And I said, I don't know, I've just won the Peak.
00:28:00He said, what?
00:28:02I had juries in the school,
00:28:04and the students from other units all brought champagne
00:28:08and it was just completely wild.
00:28:14The landscape of Hong Kong
00:28:17was as significant in the way it was drawn
00:28:20as the proposal for the building itself.
00:28:23The detail of those urban landscapes was suppressed,
00:28:27as though it was all a kind of rocky outcrop.
00:28:31But within that vocabulary
00:28:34of relatively kind of spiky and jagged forms,
00:28:41you could see already the desire for fluidity.
00:28:46The Peak was the peak and still remains a peak, I think.
00:28:51I have a feeling it still is a guiding,
00:28:54or should be a guiding light forever.
00:28:59Despite the brilliance and ambition of the project,
00:29:03Zaha's client lost the site and it was never built.
00:29:07Did you expect it to happen?
00:29:10What did you feel when it didn't and how did you feel now?
00:29:14Well, I was very... I was sad because, I mean, it was...
00:29:17It was like in our grasp, you know, and you know it could happen.
00:29:24But it didn't.
00:29:26And yet the Peak did put Zaha on the map.
00:29:30Her work was attracting the attention of young architects
00:29:33from all over Europe.
00:29:35Patrick Schumacher was one of them.
00:29:39So this is the famous Studio 9.
00:29:41That's the first space we had
00:29:44and that's where I first knocked on the door of Zaha's studio.
00:29:47So once it was one room... That's right.
00:29:50..or two and now it's an entire complex of buildings,
00:29:53every one of which you sort of entered and sort of took over.
00:29:57Yeah, one by one, one by one, picking up
00:29:59and now we have another building, as you know.
00:30:03Patrick first encountered Zaha's work as a student in Stuttgart in 1983.
00:30:10She had won the Peak and that meant she was published
00:30:13and her publication was circulating around universities.
00:30:17So she was a star, you know, a young star,
00:30:2020 years before she was known outside as a star.
00:30:24And what Patrick did next was apply for a job.
00:30:28I had an interview, not with her actually,
00:30:31with one of her collaborators.
00:30:34This was only a very small group at the time, four people only.
00:30:37And so I was hired and started work and it was very funny.
00:30:43She didn't acknowledge my existence for the first four weeks, roughly.
00:30:47I opened the door for him but I didn't want him there.
00:30:50You didn't? No. Why?
00:30:52I didn't like him.
00:30:54And I didn't want to talk to him.
00:30:56He got on my nerves.
00:30:58So there was initially no communication at all.
00:31:01Not even a hello, an acknowledgement.
00:31:04Anyway, I sacked him every week.
00:31:07So he would be upset and he would go for a walk
00:31:09and there was another guy who walked with him
00:31:12to calm him down and say,
00:31:15she'll come around eventually.
00:31:17So I was curious.
00:31:19But I was anyway absorbed in the work.
00:31:21I was getting on quite well.
00:31:23So how long did it take you for you both to get into a rhythm?
00:31:26No, I think a few months.
00:31:29And... And he's a really fantastic guy.
00:31:34He's stubborn, my God.
00:31:36But he's been an enormous support to me.
00:31:40And he's also a great...
00:31:42I mean, he's a very, very good designer.
00:31:45He's very smart.
00:31:47And, yeah, I think he's been an incredible asset.
00:31:51You've got to have an ego.
00:31:53How is Zaha's ego? Huge.
00:32:00It was ten years after winning the P,
00:32:02that Zaha, now working happily with Patrick,
00:32:05completed her first major built project,
00:32:08the Vitra fire station in Germany.
00:32:13Dramatic and abstract, it is unmistakably Zaha Hadid.
00:32:19Hélène Binet has been photographing Zaha's work ever since.
00:32:26There's never been any building like this.
00:32:29It's an absolute luxury in life
00:32:32to be able to photograph something that you have no reference.
00:32:36So your image is really about discovering, understanding
00:32:40and not referring to anything else.
00:32:42It's a gift.
00:32:47From her images, it's apparent that the lines between art,
00:32:51sculpture and architecture have been crossed.
00:32:56Zaha hadn't just studied Malevich, she had absorbed him.
00:33:02I could follow the process and be then,
00:33:05during the construction side,
00:33:07the moment where it's only concrete,
00:33:09before the door, before the fire alarm, before anything,
00:33:12where it's just structure, just the skeleton,
00:33:15just the concept, the purest you can have.
00:33:18And like here, there will be door later on,
00:33:21but at the moment it's purely this incredible ceiling,
00:33:26roof standing on some concrete.
00:33:29So the sense of magic, the sense of pushing
00:33:32the construction technology
00:33:36to the extreme.
00:33:38She always had buildings where I think the engineer
00:33:42must have had a big headache before to start,
00:33:45because she said, I want to just forget about any gravity
00:33:49and let it flow, and it has to be concrete, heavy,
00:33:53but free and light.
00:33:55So it was amazing.
00:33:58She has created an incredible signature.
00:34:01Concrete became something else, I think, after her.
00:34:07Not a bad result for a project which started life
00:34:10not as a building at all, but as a chair.
00:34:14That is what Vitra owner Rolf Fellnbaum
00:34:17originally commissioned them to design.
00:34:20So why not the chair?
00:34:22Is that more difficult than a building?
00:34:24It's not a trivial matter.
00:34:27A chair is quite a difficult product,
00:34:30and we were in a different world.
00:34:33A very self-contained object needs to be neat.
00:34:36We were in a much more explosive, exploratory territory.
00:34:39The furniture we created were more kind of
00:34:42semi-usable abstract interior landscapes.
00:34:45So that didn't work.
00:34:47He said, well, you know, maybe the chair is too restrictive.
00:34:51How about if we do the fire station?
00:34:55How about designing this building?
00:34:58Yeah, I mean, poor Rolf, it was so patient.
00:35:03It was an extraordinary building in that it actually allowed
00:35:06someone hard to physically realise those early canvases
00:35:11which were all about slicing blade-like buildings,
00:35:16sharp-edged and like glittering sabres.
00:35:23We had so many different sketches, approaches,
00:35:26and we were never satisfied.
00:35:28We kept withdrawing and holding back.
00:35:30Rolf said, oh yes, that's great, I want to build that.
00:35:32We said, no, it's not ready, we're unhappy with it.
00:35:35I can remember at one stage Rolf calling me up and saying,
00:35:38Diane, does she really want to build it?
00:35:42Could she sort of make a few decisions, please?
00:35:45But they're celebrating their 20th anniversary this year,
00:35:49and Rolf is one of her strongest supporters still.
00:36:02Since completing the fire station in 1993,
00:36:05Zaha has designed many buildings that haven't happened.
00:36:10Her vast archive room contains models of her successes and her failures.
00:36:17To this day, I'm angry that this was not built,
00:36:20the Cardiff Opera House.
00:36:22It was very buildable, and this would really have not only
00:36:26established her name rather sooner as an architect who could build
00:36:30as opposed to merely an architect who could draw and paint and model.
00:36:35But also, it would have been the Bilbao, Guggenheim
00:36:39of England and Wales.
00:36:43The crime was Cardiff, you know.
00:36:45That was really horrible.
00:36:49I mean, you won it not once but twice, really.
00:36:52Three times.
00:36:55I don't know, I mean, it was a very strange situation.
00:37:01I could have easily gone, you know,
00:37:03the children crying or whatever,
00:37:06because we were treated very badly.
00:37:11But they didn't want us, I mean, you know.
00:37:15I don't know what they wanted, actually.
00:37:18Cardiff in the late 1990s was not a place to try to build
00:37:22an adventurous piece of architecture,
00:37:24especially if you were an adventurous Arab,
00:37:27an adventurous Arab woman architect.
00:37:29It was just too much for the city.
00:37:32I was a non-entity, you know.
00:37:34I was known within the profession here in London,
00:37:36but in Wales they didn't know me.
00:37:40They didn't expect me to win it.
00:37:44The Millennium Commission,
00:37:46which was basically going to be funding most of this,
00:37:49took against Zaha, I think personally,
00:37:52and almost started a campaign against the building.
00:37:55I was told by one of the leading Millennium Commissioners,
00:37:57oh, you know, Hugh, this is unbuildable.
00:37:59Complete nonsense. It's not unbuildable.
00:38:01It was perfectly buildable. It was engineered by every Arab,
00:38:03the same people who engineered the Sydney Opera House.
00:38:05You know, that is not a difficult building to build.
00:38:08And yet this was the propaganda that was being put out at the time.
00:38:13Many people thought, you know,
00:38:15the drawings we did were so obscure
00:38:18and very difficult to understand.
00:38:20But we do drawings of every kind.
00:38:23The plans and sections are not the same as a normal building,
00:38:27because it's not a square building.
00:38:29And...or rectangle.
00:38:33That project was easily...could be easily done.
00:38:37There was a lot of prejudice against who she was.
00:38:41And oddly enough, not just because she was of Iraqi origin,
00:38:45or not just because she's a woman,
00:38:48but because she's from London.
00:38:50There was that there as well.
00:38:52You know, you, the Millennium Commission,
00:38:55are parachuting in poncy London architects
00:38:59down to our capital in Wales
00:39:02and telling us that we're going to build some oddly-shaped thing.
00:39:05Thanks very much. What's Welsh about that?
00:39:08I mean, what a drastically bad decision those Welsh guys made.
00:39:13I mean, really stupid.
00:39:15I mean, there they had, you know, this fabulous architect
00:39:19with this fantastic design, and they blew it.
00:39:22You know, they just completely blew it.
00:39:25And one could boycott Wales forever, really, just on that basis.
00:39:29Why not?
00:39:31LAUGHTER
00:39:33I think we gained a lot of strength through it.
00:39:36And enormous support, you know.
00:39:38I mean, honestly, until very recently,
00:39:41if I'm at the airport or in a restaurant or on the street,
00:39:45and people come to me and say,
00:39:47I'm Welsh, and we're sorry what happened.
00:39:51It deserved to win the competition.
00:39:53I think it's a masterful piece of work.
00:39:56And I'm just so sad it was never built.
00:39:59That's Britain for you.
00:40:03Zaha's work has always been distinctive.
00:40:07These paintings, concepts for different projects,
00:40:10are works of art in their own right.
00:40:17For ten years, well, maybe five years after Cardiff,
00:40:21we were absolutely stigmatised.
00:40:25Everywhere.
00:40:27Because people thought, oh, it's such a kind of bad karma,
00:40:32bad something, we don't want them.
00:40:34We did a number of competitions.
00:40:37We lost all of them.
00:40:39And then we...
00:40:41Why did you lose all of them?
00:40:43Well, maybe it was too radical, too unusual at the time.
00:40:48Maybe too sketchy.
00:40:50And then it continued most throughout the 90s,
00:40:53so we've lost most of what we've been doing for over a decade.
00:40:57What did it feel like to be in an office
00:41:00where you know you've got this powerful presence and creativity here,
00:41:04and yet you don't win anything?
00:41:08There was always the optimism and hope that the next one will be it.
00:41:14The thing that kept me going is that I really enjoyed the work.
00:41:18It was very tough.
00:41:20Actually, the times I enjoyed the most were the toughest moments.
00:41:24We were left to develop these ideas through competitions.
00:41:29I always thought, at the end...
00:41:34..we'll win.
00:41:37Competitions are almost an invitation
00:41:39to push the boundaries of possibility
00:41:42and to offer things that other people can't think of.
00:41:45And therefore, that's what she's good at,
00:41:49and that's honed her abilities.
00:41:52We had no money,
00:41:54and these people just...
00:41:58..didn't let go.
00:42:00You know, Paddy was teaching business,
00:42:04you know, Paddy was teaching in Germany,
00:42:07but he wouldn't charge me for working in London
00:42:09because he knew I had no money.
00:42:11I couldn't pay him.
00:42:13I think in the 90s...
00:42:17..honestly, none of us slept.
00:42:20I mean, for ten years.
00:42:23We were maybe ten people,
00:42:25but we did work for equivalent to 100 people.
00:42:28It was...
00:42:30..that increased our repertoire,
00:42:33so when we did get work eventually,
00:42:36you know, it wasn't so difficult
00:42:38because we had tested every option.
00:42:43It's only because we worked on every competition,
00:42:47we killed ourselves
00:42:50until we won Cincinnati,
00:42:53and one year we won Rome,
00:42:55Wolfsburg, the ski jump,
00:42:58one after the other.
00:43:02The flourish with which to exit the wilderness years
00:43:06came in 1999 with her winning entry
00:43:09to design a contemporary museum for Rome,
00:43:12a Baroque city not famed for its modern buildings.
00:43:17You could call Maxi modern Baroque.
00:43:22It seems appropriate that someone
00:43:24who is as much an artist as an architect
00:43:27should design a museum for art and architecture.
00:43:32Completed in 2009,
00:43:34it won the prestigious Sterling Prize the following year.
00:43:39The museum space of the Maxi is a completely fluid space,
00:43:43and you can see from here how it's not easy to distinguish
00:43:48between gallery and movement space.
00:43:51Concrete can become something incredibly elegant,
00:43:55something incredibly beautiful,
00:43:57a smooth, sweet surface
00:43:59that takes you around the building in a beautiful way.
00:44:04It's an architettura dolce, molto dolce.
00:44:16We're in the lobby here.
00:44:18When you see all the movement around,
00:44:20you can think of the Guggenheim by Frank Lloyd Wright.
00:44:23In this case, this is the highest point
00:44:25of architectural excitement I would say in the building
00:44:28because it's where you can see all the galleries.
00:44:31It's a panopticon that lets you understand
00:44:33more or less the organisation of the space of the building,
00:44:36so it's most important.
00:44:37But it's also where the people meet.
00:44:45Look, an actual, a card model,
00:44:48and it's getting that sinuousness
00:44:52of the whole building.
00:44:53You've got these deep, very thin concrete blades
00:44:58coming down over your head to mitigate the daylight.
00:45:03You can pick holes in it.
00:45:04There's the old building up front.
00:45:06It kind of erupts from like some kind of fruiting body.
00:45:10There's always this implication of the buildings like tendrils
00:45:16just going on further, taking over other structures,
00:45:20almost like a kind of self-generating city.
00:45:25The fluidity is to do with what we call streams.
00:45:29It's like a kind of delta of rivers,
00:45:33but they are frozen in time.
00:45:37And by bifurcating and crossing,
00:45:41it also acts as a structure
00:45:43so that it makes it rigid or stable
00:45:47and forms courtyards.
00:45:50Rome wanted a gallery for art that did not yet exist,
00:45:55a truly futurist project.
00:45:58Maxi is modern Baroque, fluid Baroque.
00:46:04We think of the 21st-century art as an art
00:46:08we don't really know what its materiality would be about.
00:46:11If it will be about materiality, if it will be about relations,
00:46:14about movement, about performance, about physicality,
00:46:18about physical stuff.
00:46:20So the museum itself is a dynamic concept
00:46:25which transforms itself into space.
00:46:30It's the most demanding art space one could possibly imagine.
00:46:34There are parts of it which feel like being thrown into a washing machine
00:46:38and spun around on your head,
00:46:40which I find personally rather exciting.
00:46:42And it's something which initially artists find difficult,
00:46:45but they will respond to it and they will find ways to make it work.
00:46:50The challenge for Zaha was not easy
00:46:52because there wasn't a curator at that time,
00:46:54so there wasn't a clear, precise programme for the building.
00:46:58So it was somehow the architecture who shaped the life of the museum.
00:47:16I think that it got a level of attention from Zaha and from Patrick,
00:47:21which maybe once they became globally famous,
00:47:24doing lots of projects all over the world, huge staff, etc,
00:47:28maybe that level of attention inevitably,
00:47:30as with all architects at that level, starts to drop off.
00:47:33But this, you know, it's got sort of forensic levels of attention on it.
00:47:37And the fact that it was done really pushing what was possible
00:47:41at a time when the technology was just coming in
00:47:44to make other forms possible makes it significant for me.
00:47:48So I would say, you know, best of early Zaha, Maxi in Rome.
00:47:55Whilst Maxi was still being built,
00:47:58they won and completed two commissions in Germany,
00:48:01a BMW factory and a science centre in Wolfsburg.
00:48:07The two very different buildings, the BMW building, I suppose,
00:48:11you could say belongs to the Jagged period,
00:48:14but the Wolfsburg project is a remarkable invention
00:48:18of a building which sits on giant concrete legs
00:48:22like some kind of elephant.
00:48:26It was like a kind of Sydney Opera House of its time,
00:48:29by which I mean an architect designs a building
00:48:34which then the technology has to, in a sense, catch up with.
00:48:37How do you build something like this?
00:48:41It deals with very complex geometries,
00:48:43which are there in nature, clouds and everything,
00:48:46but up until that point, we hadn't imagined them.
00:48:49You can imagine how you draw that
00:48:51or how you make it stand up after you've drawn it.
00:48:54But once you've cracked that, what you suddenly realise
00:48:57is that was a small problem.
00:48:59The bigger problem is how do you make it real?
00:49:02The norms of a horizontal surface and a vertical surface disappear.
00:49:06Things go through a transition.
00:49:08They're neither horizontal nor vertical.
00:49:11Therefore, the interrelationship has to act as one big thing.
00:49:16Now, to simulate the forces of gravity in something like that,
00:49:20rather than pieces and putting it together,
00:49:23was a massive challenge.
00:49:25It took us nearly 18 months to get computers to a level,
00:49:28and we worked with software manufacturers,
00:49:31to push the software, as we were designing the building,
00:49:34to a level where we could actually understand
00:49:36the gravitational forces of that.
00:49:39I'd never admitted to her that this building
00:49:41does not stand up for about two years.
00:49:43I could not face the idea of telling her,
00:49:46not only can't we draw it, but I don't think we can actually make it.
00:49:49We'd already won the job and we were starting on site.
00:49:52There is an element of fear in the whole relationship.
00:49:56You know, you don't want to let her down.
00:49:59The science centre in Wolfsburg marked a step change in her practice.
00:50:04It was a conceptual leap away from the jagged towards the elephantine,
00:50:09the snaking, the snail-like.
00:50:12Made easier by what became known as parametricism,
00:50:16of which Zaha and Patrick were pioneers.
00:50:21Parametric design is fundamentally where you allow the computer,
00:50:25you feed it various ideas,
00:50:27and then you allow it to invent form
00:50:31that you probably couldn't do in your mind.
00:50:35It's of such complexity that your brain couldn't think of it
00:50:39and certainly your hand couldn't sketch it.
00:50:44What has been extremely fertile is to look back at nature
00:50:48and the way it handles complexity.
00:50:50And there are ways of doing this now with the new tools.
00:50:53Because the new tools, first of all, we don't repeat elements.
00:50:57We always vary, iterate, modulate elements.
00:51:01Instead of saying you have only one option,
00:51:03we just give you nearly random, like nature.
00:51:05You just produce multiplicity.
00:51:08Gratuitously differentiation.
00:51:10And then we look at it.
00:51:11Ah, yes, we could use these differences.
00:51:13So there's a kind of evolutionary process of variation,
00:51:18selection and then reproduction.
00:51:20So like nature would do it.
00:51:21Your hair doesn't grow everywhere the same.
00:51:23It adapts itself to different contours, to different densities.
00:51:27Then you can follow that vector of transformation.
00:51:32The fact that we can look at things three-dimensionally in the computer,
00:51:37we can stretch them and pull them apart,
00:51:40connects very well with the parametric idea
00:51:43that if you depress a point or stretch it,
00:51:46that the other bits move with it,
00:51:48just as when you're designing a car.
00:51:52People always misunderstand this whole thing about computing.
00:51:55They think, oh, well, you know,
00:51:57they don't know what they're doing
00:51:59and they're just going to press a button
00:52:01and the computer does it.
00:52:03It's, of course, totally idiotic.
00:52:06For me, architecture is all about framing
00:52:09social interaction, social communication.
00:52:11In some of our buildings, you get that feeling.
00:52:13There's always that space of flying
00:52:16where you have, for instance, a lobby space
00:52:18where you see things below, above,
00:52:20in layers all around.
00:52:22If you go to buildings now also,
00:52:24you know you need atriums.
00:52:26You need to have an overview.
00:52:28What is happening on all these floors?
00:52:30Who is coming and going?
00:52:32We need to sense what everybody is doing.
00:52:34That's why I think these environments are so important.
00:52:36They become interfaces of communication.
00:52:38In our architecture, with every step,
00:52:40new vistas open and close.
00:52:42That's what I call information richness,
00:52:46that kind of perceptual density of offerings.
00:53:00It might seem like pure architectural theory,
00:53:03but there are certainly new vistas in Innsbruck.
00:53:09You could say the ski jump is pre-parametric.
00:53:12It's still angular, although odd angles.
00:53:15It's middle-period Zaha.
00:53:19Another Zaha, a different Zaha,
00:53:22can be found just across the valley.
00:53:31The Nordpark railway takes off
00:53:33into pure parametric diversity and curves.
00:53:38Project architect Thomas Wietzke takes us on a tour.
00:53:43The congress station cantilevers
00:53:46in one of the main pedestrian axes of Innsbruck.
00:53:49People's curiosity should be triggered
00:53:52because they see something foreign or unusual to them.
00:53:58At the same time, via these cantilevers
00:54:01and via these very open floating roof shelves,
00:54:04we wanted to create a space
00:54:06that is very open and very transparent.
00:54:09So it integrates into the flow of the city
00:54:13and it is welcoming to the visitor.
00:54:22Trains go from the city to the mountainside in under nine minutes
00:54:27over a Zaha-designed S-curve bridge.
00:54:39It's the idea to create a lively space.
00:54:42It's not only the kind of space where you transit through,
00:54:46but people are also gathering around the station,
00:54:49looking at the architecture, looking at each other.
00:54:52So we hope, and today I feel that you have a bit the sense
00:54:56that it's actually becoming a destination in its own right, so to say.
00:55:03This has been a fantastic sight above the river,
00:55:06about a thousand meters,
00:55:08so you really had to make something from these vistas.
00:55:11And that's why the station is articulated like a plateau above the city.
00:55:19It's almost pulled out of the steep mountainside
00:55:23and it darts in the direction of the valley.
00:55:26It's like a piece of melting ice sitting in the landscape,
00:55:30like a piece of a glacier.
00:55:33The substructure is all concrete in a steel frame
00:55:37and they are cladded in this frosted, I mean, this milky glass.
00:55:41So it looks like, you know, ice dribbles.
00:55:46There is no demarcating line between these things,
00:55:49so it could look like a wing, it could look like an icicle, whatever.
00:55:55It's kind of a novelty in terms of its form, in terms of its shape.
00:56:00It is new for Innsbruck.
00:56:02It is not a wooden, typical log cabin
00:56:05that you find sometimes in Tyrolean architecture,
00:56:08but it relates to the natural landscape of the Alpine regions.
00:56:18The complexity of the architecture,
00:56:22the complexity of these geometries,
00:56:25is challenging to control.
00:56:29The fluidity and the non-repetitiveness of the forms.
00:56:36We used a particular software in order to generate
00:56:41but also to control these shapes.
00:56:52So the shapes are made possible by parametricism and computers,
00:56:57but there's more to it.
00:57:01There's also a spiritual thing, you know,
00:57:04do you want to do angular or do you want to do curves?
00:57:07And the budget, frankly, the budgets for curves.
00:57:11Frank says this, Frank Gehry says,
00:57:15flat piece of something, $1.
00:57:18Single curve, $2.
00:57:20Double curve, $10.
00:57:22That just about sums it up.
00:57:28If a double curve is $10, this building is priceless.
00:57:33Completed this year, though not yet opened,
00:57:36it's the most extreme yet of Zaha's designs.
00:57:41It's organic, rolling.
00:57:45It slips and slides like plasticine.
00:57:50It's a new cultural centre in Baku,
00:57:53capital of the once Soviet state of Azerbaijan.
00:57:57A huge show-off project for the ruling family.
00:58:01It gave Zaha the opportunity to really stretch her wings.
00:58:07It's the ultimate Zaha experience.
00:58:10It's really basically three buildings.
00:58:14It's a library, convention centre and a museum,
00:58:18but they kind of merge into one.
00:58:21And it's a very odd city because it's a mixture
00:58:24of Russian neoclassical and Soviet architecture.
00:58:35Baku's skyline is changing.
00:58:37New buildings are transforming the city at a rate of knots.
00:58:43Yet Azerbaijan's past is still apparent
00:58:46in the lives of the everyday Azeri people.
00:58:59Since the discovery of oil, Azerbaijan's economy
00:59:02has been one of the fastest growing in the world.
00:59:07Evidence of this new wealth abounds in Baku's boulevards.
00:59:13You arrive there and since you come out of the airplane,
00:59:16you smell the petrol. It's really strong.
00:59:19You feel that it was a communist country, all the big buildings.
00:59:23And now suddenly they want to make it beautiful,
00:59:25so they build new buildings, but they also make this fake façade.
00:59:29And behind you have all the old Soviet buildings.
00:59:32And it's quite dark and grey.
00:59:35And then you arrive at Zaha site
00:59:38and you have this explosion of white.
00:59:41And the light is very strong when it's sunny,
00:59:44so it's really white, it's like a flower.
00:59:48I don't think there's any building like that.
00:59:51It's a real palace in Europe,
00:59:54been built since maybe, I don't know,
00:59:57since Louis XIV with Versailles.
01:00:04It's a completely immersive field.
01:00:06It's re-examining the idea of the block.
01:00:10So it's no longer a perimeter block,
01:00:12it's not a podium with a tower.
01:00:14It's very exhilarating.
01:00:16Also it can be very calming, it's like going to the park,
01:00:19because it has that kind of rock-like,
01:00:23landscape-like quality, fluid quality.
01:00:28We found very good people to do all the tiling,
01:00:32which is vacuum-formed.
01:00:35I think that the idea was to make a completely seamless building,
01:00:40so the landscape literally crawls up the edge of the building
01:00:44and becomes like a mountain.
01:00:50It was very important that whatever we proposed
01:00:53actually breaks away from the rigid, monumentalist,
01:00:56Soviet architecture.
01:00:58And we wanted to reflect
01:01:03Azerbaijan's sensual side.
01:01:08Turn the corner and this building changes.
01:01:11With every angle, every turn,
01:01:14it reveals something new and unexpected.
01:01:18It's one of the most remarkable structures I've ever seen.
01:01:25There's a romanticism involved
01:01:28We wanted to do something very sensual,
01:01:32and at the same time we wanted to do something very strong.
01:01:41Traces of Zaha's buildings, their outlines and curves,
01:01:45can be found in more ancient surfaces.
01:01:48Look closely and you'll see in this Arabic calligraphy familiar shapes.
01:01:53Carved before us is a line of fluid forms,
01:01:57like Zaha buildings set in stone.
01:02:01Fluidity in architecture in this region always existed.
01:02:04So if you look at Islamic architecture's interiors,
01:02:07you always see the calligraphy or ornamental floral patterns
01:02:12running through in all these interior surfaces,
01:02:15from carpets to walls to ceiling to dome.
01:02:18And, you know, within our case,
01:02:20I mean, we use fluid spaces which is continuously running
01:02:25and without being iconographic or without looking at the past,
01:02:29can relate to the region's understanding of architecture.
01:02:35It's like surfing, you know, like when the wave breaks,
01:02:39it peels from the ground and creates like a circular kind of arc.
01:02:49This building is as extraordinary inside as it is out.
01:02:54From every floor and angle, it awes and astounds.
01:03:00Spaces unfold for conferences, concerts and exhibitions.
01:03:14The building is not yet open to the public.
01:03:17Its spaces wait in anticipation of any activity.
01:03:21Its only residents are the government workers
01:03:24who are tucked away behind the scenes
01:03:27and the cleaners who ceaselessly polish its surfaces.
01:03:34Zaha knows how to push us, the designers, the architects, to the limits.
01:03:41Always there's a pressure for innovation
01:03:44and I think that's a good...
01:03:49..kick.
01:03:51MUSIC PLAYS
01:04:05Zaha's always had people who were very eager to work for her
01:04:08because in the architectural profession,
01:04:10particularly amongst young people, she is a goddess, you know.
01:04:14She's very, very important and very exciting to work for.
01:04:18It's extremely difficult to work for, I would imagine.
01:04:21I've never worked for her.
01:04:22Zaha is...
01:04:24If you know her and if you understand her
01:04:29and if you make allowances for the strength of her personality,
01:04:33she's a very good collaborator.
01:04:37Very inspiring person.
01:04:40But you have to have the patience to make these allowances.
01:04:48You have to give her room.
01:04:51If you try to constrain her, then she will explode.
01:04:55And are you a tough boss?
01:04:58I don't think so.
01:05:01I mean, if somebody is taking the pissy,
01:05:04excuse me, Nenga,
01:05:06I am tough, but actually I'm a pushover.
01:05:10MUSIC PLAYS
01:05:19MUSIC FADES
01:05:24This is the biggest of Zaha's British achievements to date.
01:05:28The London Aquatic Centre, an iconic wave-like structure
01:05:33that landed two years ago in the Olympic Park.
01:05:38Its temporary seating wings are currently being removed
01:05:42to reveal its true, more fluid shape.
01:05:49It's a clear contrast with her first building in the UK,
01:05:53an angular Maggie's Cancer Care Centre in Fife, completed in 2006.
01:06:01In the years since, she's designed a museum of transport in Glasgow...
01:06:07..and a school in Brixton, London, the Evelyn Grace Academy.
01:06:18This is London's latest Zaha building,
01:06:21and finally her first in the centre of the city.
01:06:27It looks like a tiny piece of baku
01:06:29has just landed in Kensington Gardens.
01:06:32It's a renovation project of sorts, and still a building site.
01:06:37It's a Zaha-designed extension to the new Serpentine Gallery.
01:06:43It will be a restaurant and social space,
01:06:46housed under what feels like a floating roof.
01:06:53Very nice.
01:06:54I want to become a photographer.
01:06:59Coming full circle now that you are building all over the world,
01:07:04are there things you really want to do still
01:07:07which you are passionate about in certain parts of the world?
01:07:10London, for instance, here.
01:07:12Yeah, I mean, I really would like to do something in London,
01:07:15because I've lived here, well, most of my life.
01:07:20And whenever you come across a site or a situation,
01:07:23you always imagine what it would be like if you did something there,
01:07:26or it would be different.
01:07:28So there is, like, 40 years of imagining things to happen,
01:07:33you know, with me in London.
01:07:35And I do have an interesting take on the city.
01:07:38But also through teaching in the AA, we...
01:07:41Many years ago, I did always a London project,
01:07:45because I was curious about London.
01:07:47Also, at the time, people really looked at buildings.
01:07:50You know, we would go out and we'd travel to, I don't know,
01:07:54all sorts of countries to look at projects.
01:07:56Then that changed.
01:07:58People started looking, travelling and doing esoteric stuff,
01:08:02looking at landscape, which was also very important.
01:08:05So I think it gave us also knowledge
01:08:08on how to sort of, in one's head,
01:08:11to superimpose one reality on another.
01:08:15So I always had projected realities on London,
01:08:20and that's why I've always wanted to build here.
01:08:23So there is still a big opportunity for the city?
01:08:26Yeah, I personally think there is, yeah.
01:08:29You know, it's maybe...
01:08:31It's been easier to achieve these things in places like Beijing
01:08:36than in London, not because of regulations,
01:08:41but because, you know, you need to kind of convince people
01:08:45that it is possible to inhabit the city in a different kind of way.
01:08:50Anybody who is a pioneer has massive challenges.
01:08:55And Zaha is somebody resolutely of her own time,
01:08:58but also well ahead of her time.
01:09:00And it's like night follows day.
01:09:03It wouldn't matter whether she was called Zaha Hadid,
01:09:05John Smith or Mary Jones, that's the territory.
01:09:08And it's a very, very tough territory to inhabit.
01:09:11What is so fantastic is the recognition she now has,
01:09:15and rightly so.
01:09:17And so this is a moment of incredible flowering for her.
01:09:21But she is a pioneer. She's still a pioneer.
01:09:26Up to even 20 years ago, people did not anymore believe
01:09:30in what I always called the fantastic.
01:09:32They did not think that world is possible.
01:09:35And some people still don't think it's possible.
01:09:38And it is.
01:09:41You know, we do this really so you can be
01:09:44in a very simple space like this and feel good.
01:09:47And it's as simple as that.
01:09:51Maybe they can learn it to us about why it's empty.
01:09:54Yes.
01:09:55To have a party.
01:09:57We can have a potato party here.
01:10:00What kind of a party?
01:10:03A potato party.
01:10:07I don't know why you put up with it.
01:10:10We want to do a party with serving every kind of potato.
01:10:16We want to do a party with serving every kind of potato.
01:10:21But it looks like a potato chip anyway.