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Last October 31 marked what would have been Iraqi architect Zaha Hadid’s 76th birthday, as well as the 10-year anniversary of her death. Rana Hadid, Hadid’s niece and chair of the trustees of the Zaha Hadid Foundation, said that the time is right for a proper celebration of her aunt’s legacy.
Last week, the Zaha Hadid Foundation reopened its doors at 10 Bowling Green Lane in Clerkenwell, the architect’s former headquarters. Meanwhile at the Architectural Association’s campus on Bedford Square, the foundation, together with the architecture school and the Serpentine, held a two-day symposium in Hadid’s honor. Titled “89 Degrees of Zaha Hadid,” the event celebrated her legacy, including talks on her beginnings in Baghdad and Beirut, her student years at the Architectural Association, and generally grand nature of projects and personality. (One talk is titled “Would they call me a diva if I were a guy?: Being Zaha.”)
Rana, who was present at the symposium, told ARTnews that she raised her hand during some talk correct misconceptions. “I get really upset when I hear things that are not true. We all have our own perceptions of how things happen, and after someone dies, it becomes very easy to change it,” said Rana. She took over as chairman and trustee of the Zaha Hadid Foundation in 2025 from Brian Clarke, artist and Hadid’s close collaborator, who died in July last year. Earlier, in 2020, the foundation settled a four-year legal and personal battle over the architect’s $133 million estate.
“When Zaha passed away, I discovered that I was an executor and trustee of her estate. She had never told me that I was either of these, and straight after her passing, we just had to deal with all of the legal matters.”
The Zaha Hadid Foundation encompasses 300,000 objects from the late architect’s life, from paintings, architectural models, sketchbooks, letters and even her wardrobe (which includes Comme des Garçons and Yohji Yamamoto pieces).
“Our greatest asset is the archive she left behind, and it goes beyond architecture. We can see the way that Zaha thought and how her methodology evolved, resulting in her designs and architecture,” said Rana, revealing that although she doesn’t necessarily believe in a 10-year plan for the future, the next two years are enough to keep her busy with international retrospectives in the works at major institutions. She added that there has been “huge interest” in Hadid’s paintings and wardrobe. An exhibition titled “Zaha Hadid: Visionary Museum Designs” will open next year at the Sir John Soane’s Museum in London, running from March 24 to June 20, 2027.
Rana wants Hadid’s archive to travel beyond the UK just like her architecture. The foundation has been offered exhibitions in Iraq and other countries in the Middle East. “We will be going to Iraq,” said Rana, who grew up in Beirut. She’s never visited Iraq, but said she still “feels Iraqi.”
“Zaha was first and foremost always Iraqi; she always credited the Iraqi part in her for who she was. She had a huge pride of place for Iraq,” said Rana. She recounted how Hadid used to make “the best leg of lamb, the Iraqi way, simmering over a fire for almost 20 hours” with rice. The Iraqi dialect would slip into her Arabic, too, with colloquialism like “Shaku maku?” (What’s there? What’s not there?)
Hadid’s exuberance was well documented, and to honor a decade of her death, Rana had to think like her late aunt, which is what inspired the two-day symposium.
“Zaha was really big on birthdays and she’d always like to make a big thing about her birthday. She would always say to me, ‘I hated surprises and I hate someone throwing me a surprise birthday party, so I may as well assume it, invite everyone and be in control,’” said Rana. A great number of Hadid’s friends and admirers attended the symposium, from Hans Ulrich Obrist and Deyan Sudjic to Aric Chen and Francesco Vezzoli.
“Symbolically, it’s been a very rough 10 years with legal disputes, and we’ve only been a foundation for four years,” explained Rana. “To turn Zaha’s office of 35 years into a foundation was very important to her because it was a former Victorian schoolhouse—and now people can come to learn and it serves everyone.”
The newly refurbished headquarters includes galleries, a learning space, lecture hall and collection display. The spaces will be used to host exhibitions, talks, workshops and creative residencies—the space has been inaugurated with an exhibition, “Zaha Hadid: Architecture of Performance,” curated by Catherine Howe and Libby Sellers, tracing the stage and set designs Hadid imagined for contemporary dance, classical opera and pop music.
Rana describes the Zaha Hadid Foundation as a platform for Hadid’s connections: “We’ve inherited a lot of friends, supporters and clients who became friends and family. Zaha had this amazing way of connecting with people and people loved her—without all of their help, we wouldn’t be here today.