Office for Metropolitan Architecture

She learns, crucially, that a small practice with almost no capital can still compete for commissions that dwarf its size if the ideas inside the entry are sharp enough to cut through the noise.

But she also begins to understand quietly that OMA's ideas are not entirely her ideas.

Koolhaas is drawn to program, to the social and political choreography of a building, who moves where and why, and what that says about power.

Hadid is drawn to something more elemental.

She wants buildings that do not rest.

By 1980, the wanting has become impossible to contain inside someone else's office.

She leaves OMA and opens Zaha Hadid Architects in London, working initially from the top floor of a house in Kensington that belongs to a friend, and later from a series of modest studio spaces that never quite match the scale of what she is imagining inside them.

There is no grand unveiling of this new firm, no launch party, no press release.

Um, one of them was a refurbishment of the old Saxony Hotel.

Uh, there were some commercial buildings with retail, cultural center, and parking designed by OMA and, um, and then a residential block designed by Foster & Partners, which was the first residential tower from Foster & Partners in Northern America, so that was very exciting.

So it was with great pride that, that I joined, um, the group, uh, which was led by, uh, developer Alan Faena, who is, is quite an eccentric character, but a true visionary, and he's been incredibly successful and, and he's always surrounded himself by some of, uh, the most talented professionals.

You know, I named OMA and Rem Koolhaas with, uh, Norman Foster's.

For the hotel, we had Roman and Williams and, and Baz Luhrmann and his wife.

So it was a really exciting environment to be in.

It's a very funny name.

And they often worked on projects together with OMA, with Rem Koolhaas.

So he was a huge influence when I was young.

When I moved to the US, I worked for Stephen Hall, Bernard Chumi and Peter Iserman.