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When I was growing up in Iraq, there was an unbroken belief in progress and a great sense of optimism. It was a moment of nation building.
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I loved London. In the 1970s... it was very exciting, really wild.
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You have to really believe not only in yourself; you have to believe that the world is actually worth your sacrifices.
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Architecture is how the person places herself in the space. Fashion is about how you place the object on the person.
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Life in the Middle East is quite different from other places.
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I have always appreciated designers who dare to reinterpret fabrics and proportions, so I follow the Japanese and Belgian designers. The pieces are so animated. When they lie still, they are one thing, but once you stand them up or wear them, they become something else.
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I have been interested in fashion since I was a kid. Then I lived in London, where it was more about costume and a personal statement of who you are than about fashion.
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You don't always have to show art in what's called a white box; you can have a kind of complexity within an exhibit which actually respects the art as well.
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I have always appreciated those who dare to experiment with materials and proportions.
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All the privileged can travel, see different worlds; not everyone can. I think it is important for people to have an interesting locale nearby.
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Wherever I am in the world, my perfect day begins with waking up and heading to the beach or the pool or somewhere I can be semi-comatose. I just wake up and go to the sun.
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I am equally proud of all of my architectural projects. It's always rewarding to see an ambitious design become reality.
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For many years, I hated nature. As a student, I refused to put a plant anywhere - a living plant, that is. Dead plants were OK.
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I think that the training of architects allows you to see what will happen ten years ahead of time, or twenty. It's not guessing, it's not intuitive, it's based on research - and we may be wrong.
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I am quite sensitive to politics, because you know, as an Arab, an Iraqi, all your life, you are very conscious of it.
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My buildings are not particularly expensive. It is not a tin shed. If you want a tinny car, you pay for that.
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Men think a woman should not have an opinion.
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I've always thought that design can have equal importance to the idea of internal architecture. Professionally, things can be very dogmatic - you do the architecture, someone else does the interiors, someone else does the furniture, the fabric, etc. But I think design is all-encompassing.
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As a woman, you're not accessible to every world.
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It's very important for cities all around the world to reinvent themselves, and Glasgow is a good example of that. The Scots are very nice. I don't think they are burdened by their history.
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What's nice about concrete is that it looks unfinished.
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Architecture is unnecessarily difficult. It's very tough.
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The beauty of the landscape - where sand, water, reeds, birds, buildings, and people all somehow flowed together - has never left me.
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Education, housing and hospitals are the most important things for society.