The programme opens with Zaha Hadid: Architecture of Performance, curated by Catherine Howe and guest curator Libby Sellers, exploring how the architect’s design language extended to the stage through contemporary dance, opera and pop music. The exhibition spans her collaboration with choreographer Rosemary Butcher in 1989, her set designs for the Pet Shop Boys’ Nightlife World Tour in 1999–2000, and her staging of Così fan tutte at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles in 2014.
The archive also provides the starting point for two new commissions. In The Rebar Beneath, LionHeart weaves together film, poetry and performance in a dual-channel video exploring the relationship between visible forms and hidden structures. Mona Chalabi, meanwhile, traces Hadid’s life and work through an animated timeline, projected in the foyer onto a textile surface inspired by an Issey Miyake coat once worn by the architect.
On 30 and 31 October, ahead of the reopening, the symposium 89° of Zaha Hadid, organised with the Architectural Association and Serpentine, will bring together scholars, collaborators and friends to reflect on her life, work and legacy. A new visual identity for the Foundation, designed by Experimental Jetset, will also mark this next chapter.