News: architect Zaha Hadid has hit back at critics who have compared the design of her Al Wakrah stadium in Qatar to a vagina, describing the comments as "embarrassing" and "ridiculous".

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

She suggested that the comments would not have been made had the architect been male:  “Honestly, if a guy had done this project…"

Earlier this week Zaha Hadid Architects unveiled the design for the stadium, which is one of several new structures that will be built to host soccer matches during the Qatar 2022 FIFA World Cup.

Critics immediately compared the 40,000-seater stadium, which its architects claim is based on the curving lines of an Arab dhow fishing boat, to female genitalia.

"I'm no expert, but I think those are labia," Cosmopolitan.com's sex and relationships editor Anna Breslaw told Equire.com.

"Any discerning human will be quick to recognize that the building looks exactly like an enormous vagina," wrote women's website Jezebel.com.

Comments from Dezeen readers included "One vagina in a sea of penis towers" and "It looks like a baboon's bum".

The Al Wakrah stadium has been co-designed by AECOM and features a flowing roof designed to protect spectators from the worst of Qatar's extreme heat.

"With its shiny, pinkish tinge, its labia-like side appendages and its large opening in the middle, the supposedly innocent building ("based upon the design of a traditional Qatari dhow boat") was just asking for trouble," wrote The Guardian's Holly Baxter on the ensuing furore.

It is unusual for an architectural structure to be compared to a vagina; comparisons with the male organ are far more common.

A flaccid image of Foster + Partner's Gherkin skyscraper was recently used to advertise a treatment for erectile dysfunction.

A building nearing completion in China has been compared to a "giant penis" while comparisons have been made between a Jean Nouvel tower in Doha - also in Qatar - and a dildo.

See five more buildings with unfortunate likenesses.