Description
A collection of 79 drawings and
paintings from contemporary architect, Zaha Hadid (b. 1950) executed for the design of the
exhibition of Russian Constructivist art, "The Great Utopia" (Guggenheim Museum, 1992).
There are 32 ink drawings and 47 acrylic paintings, grouped thematically by
installation.
Background
Zaha Hadid is a leading architect, currently practicing in London, whose work encompasses
urban planning, interior design, and product and furniture design. She was born in Iraq in
1950 and received her degree in mathematics at the American University in Beirut. From 1972
to 1977, Hadid attended the Architectural Association in London where she encountered the
work of the architects Elias Zenghelis and Rem Koolhaas. After completing her studies, Hadid
joined the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) as a partner and worked on the Dutch
House of Parliament Extension in the Hague. She established her own practice in London in
1979 and soon after won the Peak International Design Competition, Hong Kong, in 1983. This
award was the first of Hadid's many international exhibitions, awards and commissions. Since
1986, Hadid has intermittently taught architectural design at the Architectural Association,
London; the Graduate School of Design, Harvard; and the Graduate School of Architecture,
Planning and Preservation, Columbia University. Hadid is known and admired as much for her
extraordinary abstract, deconstructionist architectural drawings as for her built designs,
which, though few, include the fire station in Vitra Germany and the IBA housing block in
Berlin.