Acclaimed for daredevil buildings in a style that can only be described as Opulent Futurism, architect Dame Zaha Hadid , who died in March at 65, pushed her profession’s envelope with head-swiveling, technologically groundbreaking aplomb. “Zaha’s philosophy was never about straight lines,” AD100 decorator and David Gill Gallery CEO Francis Sultana , a longtime friend of the British-Iraqi provocateuse, told me. “She always said, ‘Why have one degree when there are 360?’”
That sense of exploration and challenges met suffuses “The Zaha Hadid Contemporary Salon,” a powerful exhibition that Sultana created for the Masterpiece London design fair (through July 6) with members of Hadid’s office. As befits individuals who knew the architect on a profoundly personal level, the installation emphasizes intimacy and immediacy, bringing together designs for fashion, interiors, and architecture, as well as photographs, sketches, and paintings, which Sultana calls “pieces that give a glimpse into her journey within a life devoted to her work with creativity, femininity, and strength.” An Icone handbag that Hadid conjured up for Louis Vuitton joins edgy jewelry, including a ring that the architect designed and wore. Pages from her sketchbooks face stunning canvases painted early in her career; across the way, waterlike acrylic tables she created for David Gill Gallery stand watch as an audio recording of the Baghdad-born Hadid’s mellifluous voice wafts through the air.
Most poignant of all is the presence of her drafting tools, the humble vehicles by which one woman—determined, inspired, protean—went about changing the world’s architectural vocabulary.
London 2066, 1991, Zaha Hadid.
Icone bag, 2006, by Zaha Hadid for Louis Vuitton.
Liquid Glacial cocktail table, 2012, by Zaha Hadid at David Gill Gallery.
Nova shoes, 2013, by Zaha Hadid for United Nude.
Vortexx ring, 2015, by Zaha Hadid.
Lamellae cuff, 2016, by Zaha Hadid for Georg Jensen.
