In Conversation with Nigel Coates

In partnership with the Zaha Hadid Foundation (ZHF), the MA Curating the Art Museum cohort of the Courtauld Institute of Art present an evening in conversation with renowned architect Nigel Coates, led by ZHF's head of Research and Learning Jane Pavitt.

Nigel Coates is an acclaimed British architect and designer. As director of Branson Coates (1984–2006), he designed buildings, interiors and products internationally. Examples of his work are held in several museum collections, including the V&A in London, FRAC in Orléans and M+ in Hong Kong. He is the author of Guide to Ecstacity (Laurence King, 2003), Collidoscope (Lawrence King, 2004) and Narrative Architecture (Wiley, 2012). Emeritus Professor and former Head of Architecture at the Royal College of Art, he was awarded the RIBA Annie Spink Award in 2012 for his outstanding contribution to architectural education. Professor Jane Pavitt is ZHF’s Head of Research and Learning, responsible for academic partnerships, curatorial projects and public programmes. She is a curator, writer and historian of architecture and design and a visiting professor at Kingston University. Her previous roles include Head of Research Impact at Kingston University, Dean of Humanities at the Royal College of Art, and Principal Research Fellow at Brighton University and the Victoria and Albert Museum. At the V&A, she co-curated a series of major exhibitions about modern and contemporary design and architecture including Brand.New (2000); Cold War Modern: Art and Design 1945-70 (2008) and Postmodernism: Style and Subversion (2011). In 2017, she co-curated Superstructures: The New Architecture 1960-1990 for the Sainsbury Centre of Visual Arts, Norwich.

The conversation will centre on the 1970s and 80s architecture scene in London, and his friendship with Zaha Hadid. Held at the newly refurbished ZHF site in Bowling Green Lane, Clerkenwell, where Hadid ran her practice throughout her career, attendees will also be able to view the MA Curating the Art Museum cohort's curated exhibition Zaha Hadid: Reimagining London, and take part in a Q&A at the end of the talk.