The UK Supreme Court has rejected a request from Zaha Hadid Architects to be released from a licensing agreement requiring them to pay for the use of Zaha Hadid’s name.
On December 20, 2024, the Supreme Court once again dismissed the latest legal battle between the architectural studio and the Zaha Hadid Foundation over fees for the use of the late architect’s name. Zaha Hadid Architects sought to terminate a licensing agreement that obligates them to pay the foundation 6% of their annual revenue. According to the ruling, this arrangement has resulted in payments totaling £21.4 million since 2018. The studio argued that the agreement—signed in 2013, three years before Hadid’s passing in 2016—hinders their market competitiveness. However, the judge dismissed this claim.
“As the examination revealed, this legal basis is unsustainable,” wrote Judge Adam Johnson in the ruling. “The company’s economic activities have not been stifled. On the contrary, the studio has achieved significant financial success during the period since the licensing agreement was signed.”
Data included in the judgment showed that Zaha Hadid Architects’ revenues exceeded £60 million in 2021, 2022, and 2023. Furthermore, published figures reveal that the studio’s income has nearly doubled since the agreement’s inception in 2013. While Charles Walker, director of Zaha Hadid Architects, acknowledged the studio’s financial “great success,” he argued that the fees could limit the firm’s operations in the future.
Michael Anderson, a partner at Joseph Hage Aaronson LLP, which represents the foundation, stated that the decision “upholds the late Dame Zaha’s intentions and vision regarding her foundation and its charitable objectives.” He added that the architectural studio “has derived significant benefits from the use of Dame Zaha’s name and is contractually obligated to pay for that advantage.”
Legacy of Zaha Hadid
Dame Zaha Hadid DBE RA, an Iraqi-British architect, is considered one of the most influential figures in late 20th and early 21st-century architecture. Seeking alternatives to traditional architectural drawing and inspired by Suprematism and the Russian avant-garde, Hadid embraced painting as a design tool and abstraction as a foundational principle. Her explorations revisited untested experiments of modernism, ultimately opening new frontiers in architecture. Known as the “Queen of Curves,” she liberated architectural geometry, giving it a new expressive identity.
Hadid’s most notable works include the London Aquatics Centre for the 2012 Olympics, the Broad Art Museum, the MAXXI Museum in Rome, and the Guangzhou Opera House. Her innovative approach continues to shape the architectural world, even as her name remains at the center of legal and financial debates.