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.12,000 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.