POWERHOUSE COLLECTION

'Moraine' sofa by Zaha Hadid

Object No. 2005/180/1

Recognised as one of the most innovative architects of her generation, Zaha Hadid was recently awarded the highly prestigious international Pritzker Prize for Architecture. The first woman architect to win the award she joins many architectural luminaries including, most recently, Jørn Utzon and Glenn Murcutt. Iraqi-born but English-based, Hadid has dominated the vanguard of contemporary architecture for over a decade, creating a new architectural language that has extended the boundaries of both design and building technology. So far in advance of its time has much of Hadid's work been that many of her radical, abstract concepts are only now capable of being constructed. Hadid's 'Moraine' sofa was commissioned by the renowned Italian company Sawaya & Moroni and gives three-dimensional domestic scale to her abstract architectural forms. Conceived originally as part of a suite of furniture inspired by glacial formations, the 'Moraine' breaks new ground in its radical curvilinear asymmetrical form, a piece of furniture that is both sculpture and seating, abstract and functional. The sofa's moulded, free-form shape also gives physical expression to the digital design technology that has played, and will continue to play, a seminal role in Hadid's highly creative design process. Examples of the sofa are held in corporate, private and institutional collections throughout the word including die Neue Pinakothek Museum, Munich and the Donna Karan headquarters in New York.