Controversial architect says only the Scots truly appreciate her fresh angle on design

A CONTROVERSIAL architect nominated for this year's Stirling Prize
has chosen to work in Scotland as her talents have not been recognised
elsewhere in Britain.

Zaha Hadid, a Baghdad-born architect who came to the UK in the early
1970s, remains largely unknown in her adopted home despite designing
some of the most innovative structures in Europe.

She has never had a design completed in Britain, but two of her
designs are about to come to fruition in Scotland. In Kirkcaldy, her
design for Scotland's latest Maggie's Centre for cancer sufferers is
almost complete, while work is under way on her replacement for the
Glasgow Transport Museum.

Hadid was nominated for the Stirling Prize for her Phaeno Science
Centre in Wolfsburg, Germany. The award was won by the Richard Rogers
Partnership for the stunning new terminal at Madrid's Barajas Airport.
Speaking about her nomination, she noted Scotland was the only part of
Britain where her work had found acceptance.

As the proponent of Deconstructivism - which sees building design in
terms of bits and pieces, rendering structures in apparent unrelated,
disharmonious abstract forms - Hadid's controversial work will soon
become familiar to Scots.