Zaha Hadid Architects' exhibition, titled Zaha Hadid Architects: Vertical Urbanism, can be visited as virtual at the Hong Kong Design Institute (HKDI) until 3 April 2022.

Presented in collaboration with Hong Kong Design Institute (HKDI) and Hong Kong Institute of Vocational Education (IVE) (Lee Wai Lee), together with its affiliated HKDI Gallery, the exhibition was opened on January 19, 2022 and can be visited online via website until 3rd April, 2022. 

The exhibition showcases Zaha Hadid Architects’ innovations in architecture by using a variety of project documentation tools, consisting of technical drawings, diagrams, computer-generated visualisations, and architectural models, video projections and virtual reality experiences. 

The immersive online exhibition builds upon the gallery’s popular program of digital exhibitions in contemporary design, enabling a wider audience to journey through ZHA’s formative projects, zoom in to details of architectural models and experience the multimedia exhibition.

Beijing Daixing International Airport at the exhibition

Presenting the variety of approaches undertaken by ZHA, the exhibition focuses on their development of vibrant and sustainable community-orientated spaces within dense urban conditions.

The exhibition also explores ZHA’s ongoing research, detailing the pioneering innovation inscribed within the studio’s architecture.

Morpheus Hotel in Macau at the exhibition

The exhibition is presented under a specific curatorial direction for the Institutes. Its curatorial direction, led by Patrik Schumacher, Principal of ZHA, is thematically structured around three aspects of ZHA’s work: expounding on the research of ZHA’s Computation & Design research group (ZHA CODE), exploring the studio’s designs for towers in cities around the world, and showcasing ZHA’s seminal projects in the region.

"The agenda of communicative intensification within and between densely spaced high-rise structures, via the combined strategies of clustering, bridges and atria, will articulate a new paradigm for the design of high-rise urbanism," said Patrik Schumacher. 

"On this basis, the tower typology will receive a new lease of life in the central metropolitan societies, where the desire for connectivity drives urban density." 

"In the future, even more than is evident already now, this super-dense build up will be a mixed-use build up, where multiple life-processes intersect. These life-processes need to be ordered in intricate ways that nevertheless remain legible and thereby empowering," Schumacher added. 

Vertical Urbanism incorporates a selection of the studio’s renowned tower projects from around the world, including Morpheus Hotel in Macau, One Thousand Museum in Miami, Unicorn Island masterplan in Chengdu and OPPO Headquarters in Shenzhen. 

This section of the exhibition particularly examines the studio’s innovations in moving beyond the existing paradigm of tower design to enhance urbanism in the 21st century.

In Patrik Schumacher's formative essay for the exhibition, the architects outlines five critical components of 21st century tower design that are explored within the exhibition: Density; Atria + Bridges, Façade, Ground Interface and Sustainability. 

"The skyscraper seems locked in the bygone Fordist paradigm of segregating segmentation and serial repetition," Schumacher explained. 

"The tower typology is the last bastion of this bygone era. The time is ripe to challenge the standard tower typology and demand that it too participates in the general societal restructuring from Fordism to Post-Fordism," explained Schumacher.

"We are excited to collaborate with ZHA and present the ‘Zaha Hadid Architects: Vertical Urbanism’ exhibition as part of HKDI’s interdisciplinary programme," said Dr Lay Lian Ong, Principal of HKDI & IVE (Lee Wai Lee). 

"Zaha Hadid was a radical innovator who has left an imprint on modern architecture and design that will endure for many years to come. This exhibition celebrates the ingenuity of ZHA, showcasing the depth of experience of one of the most renowned architecture firms in the world. We hope that this exhibition will provide insight for students and the public alike into the stunning vision of one of the most important architects of our time," Ong added.

ZHA stated that as part of the comprehensive exhibition programme, a lecture by Patrik Schumacher in addition to industry panel discussions will be available online, exploring the exhibition's theme of vertical urbanism and examining the agenda of the tower typology that will re-structure metropolitan societies in the 21st century.

ZHA CODE, Dnipro Study Models of Metro Stations

Beijing Leeza SOHO at the exhibition

Unicorn Island masterplan in Chengdu at the exhibition

ZHA London Aquatics Centre Shell Structure Model at the exhibition

Morpheus Hotel Atrium Studies at the exhibition

One Thousand Museum, Miami at the exhibition

OPPO Headquarters model in Shenzhen at the exhibition

Tower C in Shenzhen at the exhibition

Exhibition facts

“Zaha Hadid Architects: Vertical Urbanism” exhibition

Hong Kong Design Institute (HKDI)

3 King Ling Road, Tseung Kwan O, Hong Kong, China

Exhibition Period: From now until 3 April 2022

All images courtesy of Hong Kong Design Institute.

> via Zaha Hadid Architects