While we're waiting for Eugene to spill more beans—intra-office boning? snack habits??—we're happy to see that a loyal Reader/Informer has had his/her eye on the prize. Zaha! We regret that we said we were over you. We lied. Through scoundrel's teeth. We are interested. Message: We care.

The latest. Only a few weeks old:

Dear gutter:

One gap in your otherwise zone-flooding full-court-pressing coverage of the current Age of Zahaquarius was the Ouch-errific back-and-forth between Ms. Hadid and one Elizabeth Diller, when both shared a panel at recentish conference, (topic: "contamination"), held in the basement auditorium at the Guggenheim. Sitting approximately side by side, the two engaged in a strange exchange that went a lil' somethin' like this:

LD: What I wonder, and I say this with respect, is whether this conference is about contamination, or whether it's about Zaha Hadid?

Oh, it's on. Or it was. Liz says "Cartier" and Zaha seethes. After the jump.

[subtext: Or is it about both? Ms. Diller then went into a thoughtful rumination about how big the letters were in the sign that said "Zaha Hadid" outside the museum, and in posters around town, and that Hadid seemed to have even more commercial signage around than the new Frank Gehry for Tiffany's jewelry line; Diller interrupted herself to ask of Hadid...]

...and it occurs to me, I wonder, Zaha, haven't you designed for Cartier?

ZH: [strained silence, suprisingly long.]

LD: Well, anyway... [followed by thoughts on what it's like, one big ol'
architectural retrospective veteran to another, to have all your work packed into one whitney-or-guggenheim-sized building, and isn't it a crazy thing?]

ZH: Well for it to be all of our office's work, it would have to be two Guggenheims. The problem is it's only half the work.

[subtext: You ain't seen nothing yet, sweetheart. Followed by a thoughtful monologue concluding with the thought that if it makes the shitty state of architecture just a little better, then Ms. Hadid doesn’t really mind seeing her name on posters for a few weeks.]

We can't swear to the exact transcript but that's the gist. Anyway, one guesses that the bottom line is that formalist jewelry designers aren't real architects and also, and I say this with respect, what's a pritzker prize between friends?

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