Zaha Hadid Retrospective Opens at Russia’s State Hermitage Museum

Tomorrow, the State Hermitage Museum, in Saint Petersburg, Russia, will open a will open a retrospective exhibition on the built works of Zaha Hadid, Hon. FAIA. Dubbed Zaha Hadid at the State Hermitage Museum, made in collaboration with the architect’s eponymous firm, is part of the “Hermitage 20/21” project launched in 2007 to collect, exhibit, and study 20th and 21st century art. The exhibition is arranged by Ksenia Malich, curator of contemporary art department of the State Hermitage Museum, and Patrick Schumacher, director of Hadid’s firm.

Chronicled up until the most recent works of her prolific career, the entire show exemplifies how the 64-year-old tapped into the aesthetics of Russian Avant-garde at the inception of it all. Located in the historic Nicolaevsky Hall, attendees will find paintings, drawings, models, and design objects conveying how these methods were used over time. Highlights include The Rosenthal Centre for Contemporary Art in Cincinnati; Phaeno Science Centre in Wolfsburg, Germany; BMW Central Building in Leipzig, Germany; MAXXI: Museum of XXI Century Art in Rome; London Aquatics Centre; and Heydar Aliyev Center in Baku, Azerbaijan.

In 2004, Hadid became the first female laureate of the Pritzker Architecture Prize, and received the award in the theatre of the State Hermitage Museum. When she accepted the prize, she said: “The spirit of adventure to embrace the new and the incredible belief in the power of invention attracted me to the Russian Avant-garde. I realized how modern architecture built upon the break-through achieved by abstract art as the conquest of a previously unimaginable realm of creative freedom. The idea that space itself might be warped and distorted to gain in dynamism and complexity without losing its coherence and continuity,” according to her firm’s press release.

The show will run until Sep. 29, 2015.