It will showcase the radical research that defines Zaha Hadid Architects’ work with an extensive collection of Hadid’s influential paintings, drawings, models, photos and videos of past and future projects on display — all works of art in their own right – as well as projects and designs that are built, under construction, in development or as yet unrealised.

This year, March 31, marked the untimely death of one of the greatest architects of our generation and undoubtedly the most successful female architect of all time. Zaha Hadid changed the face of architecture and carved a name for women in what is predominantly a male-dominated industry.

At the time of her death she and her practice, Zaha Hadid Architects, in London’s Bowling Green Lane, were working on more than 36 projects in 21 different countries around the world, Zaha Hadid was the first Woran and first Muslim to be awarded the prestigious Pritzker Architecture award in 2004, followed by the Sterling Prize in 2010 and 2011. She was also named the 41st Veuve Clicquot Business Woman of the Year in 2013 and placed in Forbes “100 Most Powerful Women” list in 2008.

Born Zaha Mohammad Hadid in October 1950 in Bagdad, Iraq, to an upper middle-class political family, Hadid’s father was an affluent industrialist and her mother an artist. Her father co-founded the left-liberal al-Ahali group in 1932 and the National Democratic Party of Iraq.

She studied mathematics at the American University of Beirut, before moving to London in 1972 to study at the avant-garde Architectural Association (AA) School. She went on to create her oun architectural firm, Zaha Hadid Architects in 1979 and they completed their first building, the Vitra Fire Station, Germany in 1993.

Hadid’s work is pure theatre. It is eccentric, undulating, fluid and innovative, exploring the link between architecture, urbanism, landscape and geology.

The exhibition dedicates significant space to three of Zaha Hadid Architects pivotal works, the Vitra Fire Station (completed in 1993) in Weil am Rhein, Germany, the Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art in Cincinnati (completed in 2003), for which Zaha Hadid was awarded the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 2004 and the MAXXI Museum of 21st Century Arts in Rome (completed in 2009), which marked the period during which computer-aided design was integrated into the wide ranging experimentation and advancements of Zaha Hadid Architects.

On this subject, Zaha Hadid said, “the developments that computing has brought to architecture are incredible, enabling an intensification of relationships and greater precision — both internally within the buildings as well as externally with their context. It took me twenty years to convince people to do everything in 3D, with an army of people trying to draw the most difficult perspectives, and now everyone works in 3D on the computer — but they think a plan is a horizontal section, but it’s not. The plan really needs organisation via a diagram”.

The exhibition also pays tribute to some of her unrealised work including the beautiful Peak Club, Hong Kong (1982-83), the Victoria City Aerial for Berlin (1988) and the controversial Cardiff Bay Opera House (1994-1995), the commission she won in open competition, but later had taken away by government authorities.

Zaha Hadid had previously spoken about the Cardiff Bay Opera House project: “We won the competition, then they discarded the result and we had to repeat the competition, which we won again. But then they cancelled the project’s funding. It devastated us, and | had to pick up the pieces!

Actually in that period in ’95 to the late nineties, we did one competition after the other — and we didn’t win any. Perhaps there was a stigma against us — but they were all great designs; powerful projects and interesting in their complexity. They were all very tough and soft at the same time — elegant and resolved in terms of planning. Maybe now I would do them differently, but these unrealised projects were at the beginning of our research into that kind of work — and therefore, very important in the development of our repertoire which led to the remarkable projects we build today.”

A room will also be dedicated to her furniture, jewellery and footwear designs and the exhibition will also feature photography by Héléne Binet of Hadid’s work.

Adriano Berengo, president of Fondazione Berengo, for whom Hadid designed a collection of sculptures, said, “Visitors to the exhibition will have a greater understanding of Zaha Hadid’s pioneering vision that redefined architecture and design for the 21st century and captured imaginations across the globe.”

In a 2011 conversation with Hans Ulrich Obrist, co-director of the Serpentine Galleries, Zaha Hadid said, “I know from my experience that without research and experimentation not much can be discovered, With experimentation, you think you’re going to find out one thing, but you actually discover something else. That’s what I think is really exciting. You discover much more than you bargain for. I think there should be no end to experimentation,”

Zaha Hadid exhibition
Palazzo Franchetti Venice, Italy
27 May – 27 November 2016