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Architects: Want to have your project featured? Showcase your work throughArchitizerand sign up for ourinspirational newsletters.Zaha Hadid passed away in 2016. But her company, Zaha Hadid Architects, lives on. Clients who want to commission one of her trademark gravity-defying curvilinear buildings are still free to do so. It wont be a real Hadid, of course, but then again, isnt this a question of semantics? Does any building ever really have one sole author anyway? And one cannot say that ZHAs recent projects dont bear the mark of her influence.In any case, ZHA believes that its founders name is very valuable. In fact, they pay a great deal in order to use it. In a recent case settled by the UKs High Court, it was revealed that the architecture firm pays six percent of its revenue each year to the Zaha Hadid Foundation for permission to use its founders name. Since 2018, this has resulted in 21.4 million in fees.MAXXI by Zaha Hadid Architects, Rome, Italy (circa 2010) | Photo by Konstrukt PhotoThe court case was brought by ZHA, which sought to be released from this licensing agreement. They argued that it places an unsustainable burden on their business. The court ruled, however, that the licensing agreement was valid. It was Hadid herself, after all, who set up this arrangement before her death. The Foundation, not the firm, was to be the guardian of her legacy as an artist. For the firm, the name primarily has marketing value and so the court argued it has to pay for it.The companys economic activity has not been sterilized, wrote Judge Adam Johnson. In fact, it has achieved considerable financial success in the period since the licence agreement was entered into.Tom Ravenscroft, writing for Dezeen, reports that According to figures in the judgement, Zaha Hadid Architects revenue was over 60 million in 2021, 2022 and 2023. The figures showed that revenues had almost doubled since the agreement was signed in 2013.Heydar Aliyev Center by Zaha Hadid Architects, Baku, AzerbaijanThe firms continued success after its founders passing is evidence of the value of Hadids name as a brand. Interestingly, this is the fact that most irked commenters on Ravenscrofts Dezeen article the idea of Hadids aesthetic as a packaged commodity, like a signature. And while I usually hold with the conventional wisdom that one should never read the comments, this comments section was actually quite interesting. Posters debated how the proper names of architects, while valuable in helping us categorize styles and movements, can often result in stylistic stasis, as architecture becomes a matter of different stars and their trademark looks.A poster named Milton Welch wrote, keeping the Zahas [sic] name is, apparently, way to have a client willing to pay as-if-paying-her, for the signature curves that, by now, everybody should be tired of. Milton was jumped on by another poster, Michael Leonard, who defended the curve over orthogonal construction. But Welch explained that curves themselves are not what he takes issue with. Welch argued that Hadids early innovations were stunning, but seeing the same motifs over and over gets tiresome. Seeing Hadid buildings pop up like pre-fab constructions is not true to the spirit of her legacy or really to what modern architecture should be about.Port House by Zaha Hadid Architects, Antwerp, BelgiumAnd this really is the issue with the starchitect system. Key creative visionaries like Hadid made their name by designing buildings that were truly distinctive, structures that expanded the language of architecture. And yet, many of these stars fell into a rut later on, producing what was expected of them rather than venturing into new territory. Clients want to commission a Gehry or a Hadid rather than just an innovative building. Like a Louis Vuitton handbag, they are paying for the name, not the design integrity.I wouldnt totally blame the famous architects for this. The same thing happened to Picasso in his final decades, when collectors would pay huge sums for anything he produced even when it was derivative junk. The problem isnt really about fault. It is about the way branding stifles innovation. No actor likes to be typecast; architects should feel the same way.Perhaps the best thing ZHA could do is let go of the Hadid name and reinvent themselves for a new century. The world needs more original architects like Zaha Hadid not more Hadid buildings.Architects: Want to have your project featured? Showcase your work throughArchitizerand sign up for ourinspirational newsletters.Cover Image: Guangzhou Opera House by Zaha Hadid Architects, Guangzhou, China (circa. 2010)The post Whats in a Name: Zaha Hadids Legacy and the Business of Branding Architecture appeared first on Journal.
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