Zaha Hadid Foundation Inaugural Director, Professor Paul Greenhalgh, Building Plans, Bursaries, ZHF Architecture
Zaha Hadid Foundation Inaugural Director News
28 February 2022
Inaugural Director Announced For Zaha Hadid Foundation
New Building Plans And Bursaries Announced
Professor Paul Greenhalgh
Professor Paul Greenhalgh – Zaha Hadid Foundation Inaugural Director
Monday 28th of February 2022 – The Zaha Hadid Foundation (ZHF) is pleased to announce the appointment of Professor Paul Greenhalgh as its inaugural director. He is an art historian and museum director with considerable international experience, a curator and scholar of art, design, and architecture. His previous roles have included Director of the Sainsbury Centre (UK), Director and President of the Corcoran Gallery of Art and College of Art and Design (Washington DC), President of NSCAD University (Canada), and Head of Research at the V&A Museum (London). He has curated many major exhibitions internationally, and published widely on art, design and architecture in the Modern period.
Professor Greenhalgh said: “It is an enormous honour to be leading the Zaha Hadid Foundation in its inaugural phase. We intend to preserve the magnificent creative legacy of Zaha, by making publicly available our unrivalled collection of her works, and presenting these to the world through exhibitions at home and internationally. In the creative and intellectual spirit of Zaha, we will also address the condition of architecture and related arts of our times, through education and research programmes. Zaha loved to teach and to promote understanding of Modern architecture and art. She constantly sought to give access to the world of architecture and design to young people and a wider public. Through programmes of bursaries, grants, and awards, ZHF will operate in this same spirit.”
Professor Jane Pavitt has been appointed Head of Research and Learning at ZHF. She is a senior manager from the university sector, and a curator, writer and historian of architecture and design. Her previous roles include Head of Research Impact at Kingston University, Dean of Humanities at the Royal College of Art, and Principal Research Fellow at Brighton University and the Victoria and Albert Museum. She has curated and authored a wide range of exhibitions and publications on modern and contemporary architecture and design, in national institutions.
Leonora Baird-Smith has been appointed Head of Collections at ZHF, responsible for the collections, archive, and library of the Foundation. Her previous roles include Head of Collections Management at the British Museum, and Head of Museums at the Metropolitan Police Service. At the British Museum she was responsible for the management of over eight million objects and one of the largest UK and international object loans programmes.
Four further posts are currently being recruited to support the collections, exhibition, research, and learning programmes, and a suite of activities has been initiated to set the inaugural creative agenda for the institution.
In its first three months of full activity:
• Planning has begun to create major research and exhibition facilities in Zaha Hadid’s name in Central London. The new Foundation’s buildings will house a gallery, museum, learning centre, research facility and think tank, dedicated to promoting Zaha Hadid, modern and contemporary architecture, design, and related arts.
• Museum-grade storage and collections management system are being created to manage the collection and make it available online. The Foundation holds over 10,000 works by or associated with Zaha Hadid’s life and work across a wide range of media, including paintings, models, plans, drawings, furniture, prints, jewellery, and fashion.
• Three Zaha Hadid Low Income Bursaries will be presented to students at the London School of Architecture. These awards will cover all fees and living expenses for two years, for each student.
• A collaboration is currently underway with the MA Curating the Art Museum programme at The Courtauld Institute. This will result in a student-led exhibition on an aspect of Zaha’s work.
About the Zaha Hadid Foundation
The Zaha Hadid Foundation (ZHF) is a charitable organisation founded in 2013 by the globally renowned architect, designer and artist Zaha Hadid. Fully launched in 2022, the founding purpose of ZHF is to preserve and make publicly available the full range of Zaha’s extraordinary output, and more broadly to advance research, learning, and the enjoyment of related areas of modern architecture, art and design. Zaha Hadid was an Iraqi woman, and an émigré who moved first to Lebanon before making London her permanent home. Her rise to global prominence was by no means an easy one. In this spirit, ZHF will actively support young people and students from diverse and complex backgrounds in their quest to become architects, designers and scholars.
The full development of ZHF was inevitably delayed by Zaha’s tragic early death in 2016, but work is now fully underway to carry out her intended vision. A director and senior team were appointed in 2021. ZHF is housed in two buildings in London and has a collection of c.10,000 works across a range of media as well as an archive and a research library. The Foundation is now in its first strategic planning phase and is in the process of developing its buildings, managing and cataloguing its collection, and organising its first public programmes and bursary awards.
At the end of this first phase, ZHF’s facilities and collections will be publicly accessible both physically and digitally through its website and online database. Its programmes of research and learning likewise will be fully active. ZHF aims to facilitate the work of practicing architects, designers, artists, scholars and the general public alike, in order to advance knowledge across the creative sector. Creative collaborations with other organisations are a core part of the ZHF mission.
Zaha Hadid
Zaha Hadid is globally recognised as one of the most important architects of the modern period, frequently credited with developing a whole new architectural language in her quest for what she described as ‘complex, dynamic and fluid spaces.’
Born in Baghdad, Iraq in 1950, Zaha was schooled in Iraq, Switzerland, and England, before studying mathematics at the American University of Beirut, Lebanon. After moving to London from Beirut in 1972, Zaha soon enrolled to study architecture at the Architectural Association and was awarded the prestigious Diploma Prize upon graduation in 1977.
Zaha then went to work for her former professors Rem Koolhaas and Elia Zenghelis at the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA), Rotterdam. Shortly after, in 1979, she founded her eponymous practice Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA) in London.
As a passionate educator, deeply committed to the support of young people, and new ideas, she continued to teach as her practice flourished, first at the Architectural Association (until 1987) and then at prestigious institutions around the world including Cambridge, Columbia, Harvard School of Design, University of Applied Arts, Vienna and Yale.
Zaha’s outstanding contribution to architecture and the arts was recognised during her life with numerous awards, including the Stirling Prize (2010 and 2011). She was the first female recipient of the Pritzker Prize (2004) and the first women (in her own right) to receive the Royal Gold Medal in recognition of her lifetime’s work (2015). She died, at the age of 65, in 2016.
Zaha Hadid Foundation images / information received 280222
Zaha Hadid Architects e-architect
Zaha Hadid Architects Designs in China
Chinese Architecture Designs by Zaha Hadid Architects – selection below:
Tower C at Shenzhen Bay Super Headquarters Base, Shenzhen
image courtesy of architectural office
Tower C at Shenzhen Bay
Shenzhen Science & Technology Museum, Shenzhen, China
rendering © Brick
Shenzhen Science & Technology Museum
Xi’an International Football Centre, Xi’an
render by Atchain
Xi’an International Football Centre
Leeza SOHO, Lize Financial Business District, Beijing, China
Design: Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA)
photograph : Hufton+Crow
Leeza SOHO in Beijing
China Architectural Designs
Chinese Architecture Designs – architectural selection below:
China Architecture Designs – chronological list
Changzhou Culture Center
Architect: gmp · von Gerkan, Marg and Partners · Architects
photography © Schran Images
Changzhou Culture Center Building
Gallery at Hongqiao World Centre in Shanghai
image from architects
Gallery at Hongqiao World Centre in Shanghai
Zaha Hadid Architects – All Projects + Practice Information
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