Zaha Hadid, one of the world's leading architects, yesterday spoke publicly for the first time about her plans for the £85m new transport museum on the banks of the Clyde, and insisted no significant changes had been made to its radical design.

Recent reports have suggested that the Riverside Museum, the successor to the popular Transport Museum in Glasgow's west end, had undergone design changes to help trim its price tag.

But yesterday Ms Hadid, speaking at the Scottish exhibition at the architectural Venice Biennale, said small adjustments to the design were "part and parcel" of any building project.

She also said that Scotland had been "nice" to her - she has also built a Maggie's Centre in Fife - compared to the "prejudice" she believes she suffers in London. Despite it being home to her award-winning and lauded practice, she has yet to design a building in the capital, and claimed she had been "sidelined".

When The Herald asked Ms Hadid if the design of the Riverside Museum had been substantially altered, she replied: "Not really. First of all, I don't think buildings should be done exactly like the diagram. Of course it is close to the designs.

"You have to develop things to make the detail work, such as the quality of the material on the exterior. I think this comes as part and parcel of all the projects."

She went on to say how much she appreciated the way Glasgow City Council had approached the process of building the museum, which will open in 2011.

Scots, she said, "believe in the process. The transport museum was a competition which we did with other people and we won it.

"I think the council, and everybody, have been really supportive, and I think that's really great. And that's how cities should really look at the way they do their public and civic projects."

The cost of the museum has risen steeply since it was commissioned. It was originally costed at £50m, before rising by 50% last year, and has recently been forecast as costing £85m.

Hadid, born in Iraq but resident in London, is one of the pre-eminent "stars" of architecture. There are few female architects who are renowned on the global stage, but Ms Hadid's reputation has risen rapidly in the last decade.

In 2004 she became the first female recipient of the Pritzker Prize, architecture's equivalent of the Nobel Prize.

However, yesterday she said that she was unable to build in London, because of "prejudice" against her Ms Hadid said she was no longer a "friend" of Professor Richard Burdett, a key architectural adviser to both the 2012 Olympics and the office of the Mayor of London.

She said she did not like the way London organises its architectural competitions, and said one architect in London had told her that her design drawings were not easy to understand and that peers did not know "how to handle" her.

"I don't want to generalise, but the Scots are nicer to me, they just don't like me in London," she said. "Let's face it, there is prejudice, it has gone on for a long time.

"Maybe they just don't believe my buildings are possible. Or they are only interested in small examples of public buildings being made, and don't believe in major interventions." She added: "I am always sidelined."

Despite her opinion, she has received one large commission in London, for the 2012 Olympic Games: the design for the London Aquatics Centre, home for water-based sports at the games.

Ms Hadid was speaking at a packed event at the Gathering Space, the first Scottish exhibition at the Biennale in its 20-year history.

Meanwhile, the Calatrava Bridge, Venice's first for 70 years and only the fourth to be built over the Grand Canal, opened without ceremony in the middle of the night.

Built by Santiago Calatrava, a Spanish architect, the 310ft single arching span links Venice's railway station with Piazzale Roma, the car, bus and ferry terminal on the other side of the Grand Canal.

It has been called a "carpet of light" by its admirers, but has been widely reviled as ugly, unnecessary and four times over budget.