Details of the British-Iraqi architect’s will have been released, with controversial ZHA director Patrik Schumacher gifted £500,000 as the sole beneficiary outside her family.
Leaving much more than a catalogue of ambitious works and a mourning global profession in her wake, documents recently secured by the Architect’s Journal have now put a figure to Zaha Hadid’s sizeable estate.
At the time of her death, the influential architect was worth a staggering £70.8 million, a sum dented by more than £3 million owed in debt. Among the executors of Hadid’s will are artist Brian Clarke, her niece Rana Hadid, former Serpentine Gallery chairman Peter Palumbo and the provocative ZHA director Patrik Schumacher, who has been gifted a cool £500,000 from the estate.
Following his appearance at the 2016 World Architecture Festival, Schumacher has become a divisive figure in the public eye. His recent comments advocating the abolition of social housing and public space in London have brought a maelstrom of heated criticism, including from his own team.
The practice published a statement condemning their current director’s views, reading, “Patrik Schumacher’s ‘urban policy manifesto’ does not reflect Zaha Hadid Architects’ past – and will not be our future,” in the open letter signed on behalf of the ZHA office.
Rana Hadid, Brian Clarke and Peter Palumbo have also come out in opposition of Schumacher, stating that, “The views recently expressed by Patrik Schumacher regarding the closure of art schools, the abandonment of social housing and the building over of Hyde Park are his personal views and are not, in any way, shared by us.”
The Zaha Hadid Foundation as well as the architect’s companies and family members are the remaining beneficiaries of the will.
INDESIGN is on instagram
Follow @indesignlive
A searchable and comprehensive guide for specifying leading products and their suppliers
Keep up to date with the latest and greatest from our industry BFF's!
Natural stone shapes the interiors of Billyard Avenue, a luxury apartment development in Sydney’s Elizabeth Bay designed by architecture and design practice SJB. Here, a curated selection of stone from Anterior XL sets the backdrop for the project’s material language.
In the last instalment of our three-part performance seating series, Alex Bain from Architectus explains why sitting well shouldn’t feel like sitting at all and explores an unexpected success metric of the hybrid workplace: the grounding power of emotional support.
In the first instalment of our three-part series exploring what it means to sit your best, we pose the question to Gray Puksand’s Dale O’Brien, who discusses the importance of ease and majority rule when it comes to sitting and reveals why specifying a task chair is not unlike choosing a Volvo.
In order to design into the future, first we must look back. In considering the state of workplace, learning and hospitality design, FRONT.design Ambassador, Simone Oliver of Architectus, outlines the defining influences of our time and design’s role within that.
Four shipping containers transformed into a kids activity centre in Melbourne, recognised by UK architectural awards
The internet never sleeps! Here's the stuff you might have missed
Scheduled to open later this year on the banks of the Parramatta River, the 30,000-square-metre Powerhouse museum — designed by Moreau Kusunoki in collaboration with Genton — represents a major shift in the geography of Sydney’s cultural infrastructure.
Melbourne-based architect and object maker Adam Markowitz blurs the line between design and craft, bringing a deeply considered, material-led approach to his work. As both a practising architect and furniture designer, Markowitz explores how objects can respond to space, light and human use.