Zaha Hadid Architects Illuminated Acrylic Architectural Model 2003

An exceptionally rare internally illuminated architectural presentation model produced by Zaha Hadid Architects in 2003 for a major cultural expansion commission in Oklahoma. This is the original proposal model presented to Phillips Petroleum Company, documenting an ambitious early-2000s Midwestern Museum project that ultimately remained unrealized.
Executed in layered acrylic and precision-fabricated polymer components, the model embodies the firm’s signature formal language of the period—dynamic, faceted geometries and fluid spatial movement translated into crystalline massing. Internally illuminated, the structure glows from within, emphasizing sectional complexity and the interplay between solid and void. When lit, the model reads less as a static object and more as a luminous spatial diagram—an effect consistent with the studio’s presentation strategies during Zaha Hadid’s most experimental years.
The commission emerged during a pivotal moment in Hadid’s American trajectory, just prior to the firm’s major built works in the United States. While the project was ultimately not realized due to escalating projected costs—rising from an early $15 million budget to estimates approaching $50 million—the model remains a compelling artifact of the proposal phase and of the ambitious architectural optimism of the era.
Architectural models from this period by Zaha Hadid Architects are seldom available outside institutional or studio archives. As both a sculptural object and a document of an unbuilt commission for a leading American energy corporation, this illuminated model occupies a unique position at the intersection of architecture, corporate patronage, and contemporary design history.
A museum-quality presentation piece with strong crossover appeal to collectors of contemporary architecture, design, and corporate modernism.
This work is unique.