“I’m trying to discover – invent, I suppose – an architecture and forms of urban planning that do something of the same thing in a contemporary way. I started out trying to create buildings that would sparkle like isolated jewels; now I want them to connect.” What drives the Baghdad-born Hadid is the urge to find out where the limits are and what is within the realm of possibility for an architect.

Hadid’s professional breakthrough did not come until after she had turned 50. She now runs an architectural office in London, employs more than 150 people and in 2004 became the first woman to win the Pritzker Prize – the “Nobel” of architecture. In the laudation she was praised and, perhaps more importantly, understood. “Her architectural career has not been traditional or easy,” the judges acknowledged. Zaha Hadid’s earliest designs were not actually built. In 1994 she won the competition to build the Cardiff Bay Opera House, but Wales was not ready for her futuristic constructions and decided on a very basic concert house instead. Back then, Hadid was devastated. Today she says: “If it doesn’t kill you, then you’re no good. I mean, really – you have to go at it full time. You can’t afford to dip in and out.”

Zaha Hadid is good, no doubt about that. Numerous other projects did get built, including the Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art in Cincinnati, Ohio, which the New York Times described as “the most important new building in America since the Cold War.” The BMW Central Building in Leipzig followed, and her latest work is a bridge across the Ebro River for the Expo in Saragossa, Spain. “I don’t design nice buildings – I don’t like them. I like architecture to have some raw, vital, earthy quality,” she says.

One of her harshest critics recently said that Hadid’s buildings “hug the earth and seem to fly away at the same time.” She smiles. “I can be my own worst enemy as a woman.” The former “paper architect” is now inundated with projects. Does this limit her imagination or creativity? “Of course not!” she replies. “Actually we’re having fun now.”