Zaha Hadid Foundation Reopens Her Former London Headquarters and Looks Toward Iraq

Ten years after the death of Zaha Hadid, her foundation is reopening the building she once worked from, and it is looking to Iraq for its next shows. Rana Hadid, the architect's niece and chair of the trustees of the Zaha Hadid Foundation, told ArtNews that the foundation has been offered exhibitions in Iraq and other countries in the Middle East. "We will be going to Iraq," she said.

The foundation looks after a large archive of Zaha Hadid's life and work, about 300,000 objects in all. They include paintings, architectural models, sketchbooks and letters. It describes its job as preserving, studying and showing that work.

The new space is at 10 Bowling Green Lane in Clerkenwell, a district of central London, and it was Zaha Hadid's headquarters. A preview took place on 29 October 2026, and the building opened to the public on 3 November. Its first exhibition is called "Zaha Hadid: Architecture of Performance." The reopening marks the 10-year anniversary of her death. Her 76th birthday would have fallen on 31 October.

Rana Hadid took over as chairman and trustee in 2025 from Brian Clarke, an artist who worked closely with Zaha Hadid. The foundation has also been through a court fight. In 2020 it settled a four-year legal battle over the architect's estate, which was valued at US$133 million.

Several events are lined up beyond the reopening. The foundation, the Architectural Association and the Serpentine, both London institutions, held a two-day symposium called "89 Degrees of Zaha Hadid" at the Architectural Association's campus on Bedford Square. In 2027, Sir John Soane's Museum in London will host "Zaha Hadid: Visionary Museum Designs," running from 24 March to 20 June. Sir John Soane's Museum is a historic house museum known for its architecture collection.

Rana Hadid also said that international retrospectives of Zaha Hadid, which are shows looking back across a body of work, are being planned at major institutions over the next two years.

For people who cannot reach London, the message is that the archive is growing in public view. The foundation's Iraq plans are the most distant part of that picture, and the most personal, given Zaha Hadid's connection to the country. Each show will need crates, climate-controlled rooms and careful handling of fragile paper and models, and the people who do that work are rarely named in the headlines.