People are not used to women speaking their minds, says Zaha Hadid. 'They think you should be mute - if you're not you're difficult and if you have an opinion you are bad tempered.'
A rare woman in the cluster of so-called 'starchitects' whose designs are reconfiguring skylines around the world, Hadid is by turns brusque and bold, unflappable and uncompromising. She is also unstinting in praise ... for many of her own buildings, which is perhaps where she breaks the stereotype of the diffident female.
Mention the luminous bubble-wrapped 'Water Cube' National Aquatics Centre built by PTW Architects for the 2008 Beijing Olympics and she says it doesn't compare with the aquatic centre she designed for this summer's Games in London, where she lives. 'The interior is definitely better,' she says. 'No question about that.'
Ask her about media reports of leaking and other construction problems at the Guangzhou Opera House and she says: 'I don't know where they got this idea that it's leaking and falling apart. The interiors are stunning. It's very close by; go and have a look.'
Hadid, in Hong Kong last week to visit the booth she created for Galerie Gmurzynska at Art HK, is quick to dispel negativity surrounding the opera house, but concedes: 'The tiling on the outside is not done properly; I would like it to be better.'
The stand offered clues to Hadid's success as the first woman to win the Pritzker Architecture Prize. Aside from her nature-defying Liquid Glacial table, the legs of which resemble transparent stalactites, the booth served as a reminder that fearlessness is a trait that goes back to her career beginnings.