Zaha Hadid Architects’ pavilion design for Chicago’s Burnham Plan Centennial celebrates the city’s ongoing tradition of bold plans and big dreams.


The project encourages reinvention and improvement on an urban scale and welcomes the future with innovative ideas and technologies whilst referencing the original organizational systems of Burnham’s plan. The design aims at continuing Chicago’s renowned tradition of cutting edge architecture and engineering, at the scale of a temporary pavilion. It triggers the visitors’ curiosity and encourages them to consider the future of Chicago.

Images courtesy of Zaha Hadid Architects © Michelle Litvin

The design merges new formal concepts with the memory of bold historic urban planning. Superimpositions of spatial structures with hidden traces of Burnham’s organizational systems and architectural representations create unexpected results. By using methods of overlaying, complexity is build up and inscribed in the structure.

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“The Burnham Plan Centennial is all about celebrating the bold plans and big dreams of Daniel Burnham’s visionary Plan of Chicago. It’s about reinvention and improvement on an urban scale and about welcoming the future with innovative ideas and technologies. Our design continues Chicago’s renowned tradition of cutting edge architecture and engineering, at the scale of a temporary pavilion, whilst referencing the organizational systems of Burnham’s Plan.” said Zaha Hadid. “The structure is aligned with a diagonal in Burnham’s early 20th Century Plan of Chicago. We then overlay fabric using contemporary 21st Century techniques to generate the fluid, organic form – while the structure is always articulated through the tensioned fabric as a reminder of Burnham’s original ideas.”

The pavilion is composed of an intricate bent-aluminum structure, with each element shaped and welded in order to create its unique curvilinear form. Outer and inner fabric skins are wrapped tightly around the metal frame to create the fl uid shape. The skins also serve as the screen for video installations to take place within the pavilion. Zaha Hadid Architects’ pavilion also works within the larger framework of the Centennial celebrations’ commitment to deliberate the future of cities.

The presence of the new structure triggers the visitor’s intellectual curiosity whilst an intensifi cation of public life around and within the pavilion supports the idea of public discourse. The pavilion was designed and built to maximize the recycling and re-use of the materials after its role in Millennium Park. It can be re-installed for future use at another site.

Project Details and Credits:


Program: Temporary pavilion to house multimedia installation


Client: Burnham Plan Centennial

Architect: Zaha Hadid Architects. Design Zaha Hadid and Patrik Schumacher. Project Architect Jens Borstelmann, Thomas Vietzke. Project Team Teoman Ayas, Evan Erlebacher

Local Architect: Thomas Roszak

Structural Engineers: Rockey Structures

Fabricator: Fabric Images

Lighting & Electrical: Tracey Dear

Multimedia Content: The Gray Circle

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