Zaha Hadid Foundation Announces Plans for London Venues

ZHF was founded by Zaha Hadid in 2013, though as the foundation points out on its website, "the full development of ZHF was inevitably delayed by Zaha’s tragic early death in 2016." Furthermore, as Building Design mentions in its reporting on ZHF's new London venues, delays in implementing the foundation's goals were hindered by the "bitter feud that erupted in 2018" between three executors of Hadid's estate and Patrik Schumacher, another executor and Hadid’s successor at Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA). That legal battle was resolved toward the end of 2020, when the four executors agreed that most of Hadid's assets would go to ZHF to award scholarships and establish a museum.

The facilities that will house ZHF's two venues — fully comprising gallery, museum, study center, research facility, and think tank — include ZHA's former offices at 9 Bowling Green Lane in Clerkenwell. ZHF's offices are currently located in the building, but ZHA moved out of the former public school last year in favor of a former garment factory at 101 Goswell Road, citing the difficulty in retrofitting the grade II-listed school for the post-pandemic era.

The other venue will be the building on Shad Thames that formerly housed the Design Museum, which moved to Kensington High Street in 2016. Hadid had bought the building, originally a warehouse, in 2013 so that it could become a permanent archive of her work. It looks like that goal will finally become a reality, though there is no indication now as to what shape the plans will take and how long it will be until opening day.

The news of the two ZHF venues accompanies the announcement of Professor Paul Greenhalgh as the foundation's inaugural director. Greenhalgh's previous roles included director of the Sainsbury Centre; director and president of the Corcoran Gallery of Art and College of Art and Design in Washington, DC; president of Nova Scotia College of Art and Design; and head of research at the V&A in London.

"We intend to preserve the magnificent creative legacy of Zaha," Greenhalgh said in a statement, "by making publicly available our unrivaled collection of her works, and presenting these to the world through exhibitions at home and internationally." The collection, per ZHF, consists of more than 10,000 works "across a range of media," plus an archive and research library.

In a statement quoted at Building Design, the foundation said that the rise of the Iraqi-born Hadid to global prominence was "by no means an easy one," so the foundation "will actively support young people and students from diverse and complex backgrounds in their quest to become architects, designers and scholars." Specifically, there will be three Zaha Hadid Low Income Bursaries that will be presented to students at the London School of Architecture, covering all fees and living expenses for two years. 

Also in the works is a collaboration with the MA Curating the Art Museum program at The Courtauld Institute that will result in, per the ZHF, "a student-led exhibition on an aspect of Zaha’s work."