Aric Chen Appointed as Director of Zaha Hadid Foundation

The Zaha Hadid Foundation (ZHF) announced this month the appointment of Aric Chen as its newest director. He replaces Paul Greenhalgh, who had served as inaugural director of the London-based charitable organization since 2021. 

Chen referred to the appointment as a “huge honor,” adding: “I look forward to seeing what new directions we can chart, expanding the understanding of Zaha’s work while furthering her desire to support new voices, and creating a voice of our own that I hope would make Zaha proud.”

The foundation was established in 2013 by the late Pritzker Prize–winning architect but was not fully active until nearly a decade later, delayed by Hadid’s untimely death in 2016 and a prolonged legal tangle that followed. The dispute between Zaha Hadid Architects, led by Hadid’s former business partner Patrik Schumacher, and the foundation continues today. The ZHF describes itself as being dedicated to “preserving and promoting the work of Zaha Hadid and fostering those arts that relate to her work.” The foundation’s physical footprint is spread across two London locations: at Hadid’s erstwhile offices at 10 Bowling Green Lane, Clerkenwell, and at a converted warehouse space on Shad Thames near the Tower Bridge. Its wide-ranging collection contains roughly 15,000 works of architecture, design, art, and archival material as well as a research library. In June 2022, ZHF hosted its first public exhibition, Zaha Hadid: Reimagining London, at the former location. A full list of past exhibitions and events can be found here.

Born in Chicago and educated at the University of California, Berkeley, Chen is a writer, curator, and international correspondent for RECORD. In 2021, he began his current role as general and artistic director of the Nieuwe Instituut in Rotterdam, which serves as the Netherlands’ national museum and institute for architecture, design, and digital culture and where Chen oversaw a staff of 120. “There is no institution in the world quite like it,” he said of the Nieuwe Instituut in a statement. Chen will formally depart on June 27, and his successor has not been named.

Prior to joining the Nieuwe Instituut, Chen served as professor and founding director of the Curatorial Lab at Tongji University’s College of Design & Innovation; curatorial director of Design Miami’s fairs in both Miami Beach and Basel; creative director of Beijing Design Week; and as lead curator for design and architecture at M+ in Hong Kong where, from 2012–2018, he led the formation of the museum’s design and architecture collections and curatorial team prior to the November 2021 opening of its new, permanent location designed by Herzog & de Meuron.  

Chen “brings a wealth of experience from institutions and projects he has directed all over the world,” said ZHF chair Brian Clarke. “We have asked him to bring Zaha’s energy to both a U.K. and global audience and he has enthusiastically embraced that challenge.”

Chen officially begins his new role in July.