Mum's the word

I’m very proud to see a fantastic review in the Financial Times of my mother’s exhibition Zoe Zenghelis: Do you remember how perfect everything was? at BettsProject (now online only due to covid but transferring to the Architectural Association at the end of January).

Zenghelis was there at the birth of OMA, the Office for Metropolitan Architecture, co-founded with her husband (my father) Elia Zenghelis, Rem Koolhaas and Madelon Vriesendorp in the mid 1970s. The fifth Beatle, as it were, was Zaha Hadid who first revealed her unique genius while working for OMA in those early days. Edwin Heathcote writes in the FT review that ‘in Zenghelis’s more angular and fragmented paintings you can see where Hadid drew her influence from, and she too would make her name in painting, with striking canvases that recalled Soviet Constructivist space.’

My mother painted ‘Hotel Sphinx’ (bottom right) for Koolhaas’s hugely influential and provocative 1978 book Delirious New York, a fabulous reimagining of the city. But I was first inspired by patterns when she asked me to colour in the background for the other painting above, ‘Checkpoint Charlie (Two clouds)’, the canvas stretched out on the kitchen table at home. It was the start of a journey (and a life) of making things that led ultimately to Joanna Zenghelis Designs.