Architect Zaha Hadid Fires Back at Critics of Her So-Called “Vagina Stadium”

“It’s really embarrassing that they come up with nonsense like this,” she tells TIME exclusively.

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Zaha Hadid, the world’s best-known female architect, is none too pleased with critics like Jon Stewart, who have mocked her Al Wakrah Stadium—designed with AECOM for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar—and likened her to the “Georgia O’Keeffe of things you can walk inside.”

“It’s really embarrassing that they come up with nonsense like this,” Hadid tells TIME exclusively. “What are they saying? Everything with a hole in it is a vagina? That’s ridiculous.”

The curved, open roof is meant to evoke the the sail of the dhow, a traditional fishing boat common in Qatar. “Honestly, if a guy had done this project,” she adds, critics would not be making such lewd comparisons.

For more on Hadid, a member of our 2010 TIME 100 list of the world’s most influential people, click here.