Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA) has opened a new exhibition at the Future Design Arts Centre in Chengdu, which examines the firm's innovations shaping 21st-century urbanism and traces Zaha Hadid Architects’ projects that are redefining urban landscapes around the world.

Entitled Future Cites, the exhibition can be visited at the Future Design Arts Centre, Gongyuan Avenue, Eastern New Area, Chengdu, China until 8 May 2022. 

The monographic show is enriched with projections, videos and a plenty of models, reflecting Zaha Hadid Architects’ multi-disciplinary approach in developing new ideas and concepts. 

The exhibition tackles the question of how the industry designs and constructs and showcases the investigative spirit of the firm within their architecture.

As one of the world’s most consistently inventive architectural studios, ZHA designed more than 70 award-winning works to date, and its 60 projects currently in development across six continents. For its projects, ZHA is collaborating with visionary clients, communities and industry experts worldwide.

"The motivation to move into cities, ever larger, ever denser cities, and into ever larger buildings, is clear: we come together to network, to synergize knowledge, to exchange and to cooperate," said Patrik Schumacher, principal of Zaha Hadid Architects. 

"The built environment becomes an information-rich, empowering and exhilarating 360-degree interface of communication and networking machine."

"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.

"ZHA’s architecture has evolved from their research into the organic organizational and structural systems of the natural world. These systems are evident within China’s historic architectural traditions explored by the late Zaha Hadid on her first journeys through China more than 40 years ago," said ZHA in a description. 

The studio has merged pioneering digital design methods with ecologically sound materials and sustainable construction practices, as the firm noted, "ZHA does not look at the disparate parts, but works to understand them as a whole; delivering practical solutions to the defining challenges of our era."

"As technological advancements rapidly change the way we live, work and interact, the spirit of creativity and innovation within ZHA’s architecture is defined by the myriad of possibilities that enable urban societies to flourish," added ZHA.

Exhibition facts

Exhibition name: 'Future Cities’ exhibition
Date: Until 08 May 2022

Location: Future Design Arts Centre
Gongyuan Avenue, Eastern New Area, Chengdu, China.

ZHA Exhibition Team

Exhibition Curation: Zaha Hadid Architects

Principal of Zaha Hadid Architects: Patrik Schumacher

Exhibition Design and Graphics: Zaha Hadid Architects

ZHA Overall Exhibition Design and Curation: Satoshi Ohashi, Manon Janssens, Yang Jingwen, Juan Liu, Di Ding, Nan Jiang, Feifei Fan, Haotian Man, I-Chun Lin, Lianyuan Ye, Meng Zhao, Sanxing Zhao, Shuaiwei Li, Yanran Lu, Ziming He, Ziyan Xu

ZHA Multimedia: Henry Virgin

ZHA Research Teams:  ZH VR, ZH Interiors, ZH AI, ZH Social, ZH Sustainability, ZH CODE

Exhibition Organisers

Exhibition Design and Curation: Zaha Hadid Architects

Exhibition Museum: Future Design Art Centre

Exhibition Contractor: Shanghai Tongji Architecture Interior Design & Construction

Photography © Liang Xue

> via Zaha Hadid Architects