World-famous architect Zaha Hadid had her HQ in Clerkenwell. Now a foundation and a gallery on the same site will take her vision forward
By Oliver Bennett
The Old Bowling Green Lane School has high ceilings, grand windows, and quaint separate entrances for boys and girls. Built in 1874, it’s a fine example of a London School Board building, designed by the star of the genre, ER Robson.
But it is now better known as the home of another celebrated architect – Zaha Hadid. It was from here that the late Hadid ran her company, and it’s now home to the Zaha Hadid Foundation (ZHF), which is bringing on ambitious plans for the handsome red-brick school.
Hadid died in 2016 at 65. Not long after this untimely loss, the school was shuttered. Passers-by didn’t know what had become of it. But now, the Foundation is building its presence, with exhibitions, social programmes and exciting plans to make part of the site into a gallery devoted to British-Iraqi Hadid, who created artworks, furniture and jewellery as well as buildings – some 15,000 pieces all told, most of them in storage.
In the courtyard, a streamlined Hadid bench shows what to expect. “She was a wonderful painter, a furniture and jewellery London Aquatics Centre, Olympic Park Credit Fred Romero/ Wikimedia Common A bench by Hadid in the Foundation’s HQ in Bowling Green Lane Zaha Hadid Credit Dmitry Ternovoy,/ Wikimedia Commons Hadid’s Vienna Library Learning Centre Credit Böhringer Friedrich/ Wikimedia Commons designer, was hugely into textiles and has left magnificent architectural models and hundreds of drawings and much more,” says ZHF director Paul Greenhalgh. “She kept it all and it now belongs to the Foundation.” A Hadid gallery-museum would certainly make a welcome addition to Clerkenwell, now one of the world’s most richly populated districts for architects and designers.
Hadid was one of a handful of architects to become a household name and as Greenhalgh says, without overstatement: “She was one of the top three or four architects in the world in her last years.” Governments and clients worldwide clamoured for her striking, sinuous designs – indeed, readers may have swam in the Aquatics Centre in Stratford made for the London 2012 Olympics. She gained the two biggest accolades in architecture – the Pritzker Prize in 2004 and the Stirling Prize in 2010 – and was a celebrated figurehead. All of this flowed from the old school in Bowling Green Lane.
The Foundation was set up in 2013 while Hadid was still alive. “It wasn’t very active at first and took years to be properly established,” says Greenhalgh. “But in retrospect, we can see what was in her mind with the Foundation.” Now with a 17-strong team, Greenhalgh says that the ZHF Foundation “has been functioning properly for about 18 months” and all its plans are now emerging.
Hadid’s working life was deeply embedded in Clerkenwell. “Zaha loved this area,” says Greenhalgh. “She moved in when it was far quieter and occupied a corner of the school [in 1983]. By the time she died, she owned the whole schoolhouse.” Even prior to being in the school, Hadid took space in the Finsbury Business Centre over the road. In those early years, Hadid travelled and taught but built little. That changed, and by the time she died her practice had created many buildings worldwide from offices across the globe. The practice still exists under the name ZHA – the London branch is also in Clerkenwell, on nearby Goswell Road.
“It’s clear from what she wrote that the Foundation was not simply about preserving her work,” says Greenhalgh. “But it’s great that Zaha kept just about everything.” The gallery and museum will exist alongside offices, research and study spaces, in order to keep her “intended vision” alive. There are already exhibitions on site, and they will be augmented by evening events, a programme of artists’ commissions, and events such as Open House. In doing this the ZHF could also help activate Bowling Green Lane, currently a bit of a cut-through.
The Foundation aims to be both global and local. “It will operate globally because her greatest buildings are scattered around the planet,” says Greenhalgh. “But there’s a community here which Zaha was part of for decades, so the hope is that the Foundation will work with communities and schools. We’re already in touch with organisations that promote the study of architecture and design among the less advantaged in London and have already given our first bursary to three young people.”
A full architectural training is long at seven years, and is getting harder for lower income groups. So the Foundation champions upcoming creative talent from what it calls “diverse and complex backgrounds”, reflecting Baghdad-born Hadid’s own path.
“As she often said, she was a woman and Arab, so she started with two fascinating disadvantages,” says Greenhalgh. “She loved Arabic culture, and although not a deeply religious woman was influenced by factors like Islamic calligraphy. And she was hugely concerned with where she came from and what she represented, spending lots of time in Lebanon as well as London.” Hence the Foundation’s interest in reaching out to underrepresented groups.
Hadid studied Mathematics to degree level – which brings up another matter. “Probably more than any other discipline, architecture brings the arts and sciences together,” says Greenhalgh. “I find the divide sad and we’ll absolutely be involved in promoting the sciences, particularly among the more challenged groups in our society.” In addition, architecture often attracts dyslexic students, so addressing neurodiversity will also be on the agenda.
As to the Clerkenwell of now, would Hadid be happy with the way it’s changed? “Zaha’s views were very much that the city belonged to the people, which I think is true here,” says Greenhalgh. “She was also interested in a grand theme within modern architecture – about how you can create liveable environments in which people can be happy and hygienic, clean and well.” The opening up of her old offices to the public will offer many such lessons.
For more information: Visit zhfoundation.com
