53 - Zaha Hadid

Zaha Hadid (Baghdad 1950–2016 Miami), Design for the Irish Prime Minister’s Residence in Phoenix Park, Dublin, 1979/80, ink drawing, colored pencils, and gouache on vellum, inscribed “16” in the upper right corner, with a handwritten dedication “To KRISTIN, with all my love, Zaha” along the lower left edge, 27.8 x 20.2 cm, mounted on backing board and set under glass and a mat in a white anodized aluminum frame, overall size: 44 x 44 cm. Limited edition of 1,800 The 1979 project for the Irish Prime Minister’s residence holds a legendary place in the history of modern architecture, as it is considered Zaha Hadid’s first major solo project after graduation and marked the founding of her own architectural firm. In 1979, the Irish government launched an international competition. The goal was to construct an official residence for the Prime Minister, as well as a separate guesthouse for state guests, within the sprawling Phoenix Park in Dublin. The greatest architectural challenge was to harmoniously integrate the Prime Minister’s private living quarters with the ceremonial, public spaces for state receptions without compromising privacy. Hadid radically separated the functions: she relocated the guesthouse for state visits to an existing, walled garden on the grounds, while the actual residence and the ceremonial rooms were to be connected by a floating, covered walkway. Instead of traditional architectural plans, Hadid used avant-garde, almost abstract paintings influenced by Russian Constructivism, particularly those of Malevich and El Lissitzky. She later described the process by saying that she had “taken apart not the building, but the drawing itself” in order to find new ways of organizing space. Hadid’s radical design, however, was too visionary for its time and did not make it to the final selection. The competition was ultimately won by the London-based firm Evans and Shalev. Shortly after the winning design was selected, there was a change of government in Ireland, and the new government scrapped the entire project for cost reasons, which is why Ireland still does not have an official residence for its prime minister. The dedication at the bottom likely refers to Kristin Feireiss (1942–2025), one of the most influential figures in international architectural outreach, who, together with Helga Retzer, founded the renowned independent architecture forum Aedes in Berlin in 1980, where Hadid exhibited on multiple occasions. The Aedes Gallery (now the Aedes Architecture Forum) was the very first institution in the world to provide a platform for the visionary work of Zaha Hadid, who was virtually unknown at the time. The format of the sheet and the number 16 indicated in the upper right corner suggest that the drawing likely originates from the sketchbook otherwise held by the Zaha Hadid Foundation (ZHF) in London.