From the curves of Dubai to the future home of Nikola Tesla’s legacy, Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA) are shaping a new architectural language across the Adria.
In January 2025, it was announced that ZHA had won the international competition to design the new Nikola Tesla Museum in Belgrade. The planned structure—fluid, luminous, and unmistakably Hadid—will be built on the banks of the Danube,
becoming both a cultural landmark and a new architectural anchor for the Serbian capital. Set to house Tesla’s legacy in a space that matches his visionary genius, this project marks ZHA’s most significant step into the region to date.
While this may be the first project to break ground, it is not the firm’s first conceptual foray into the Adria.
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ZHA’s First Concepts for the Adria
One of Zaha Hadid Architects’ earliest proposed projects in the region was the Rock & Shell Villas near Dubrovnik, Croatia. These bold, biomorphic villas were part of a luxury golf and spa resort concept perched above the Adriatic. Visually arresting and structurally daring, they were designed to echo the region’s rocky coastline and sea-worn curves. However, despite wide acclaim and media buzz, the villas were never realised. The larger development remains in limbo—a vision awaiting its moment.
The Allure of the Adria
The growing presence of ZHA in the Adria region signals more than aesthetic expansion. It marks the increasing architectural relevance of the region on the global stage. With economic growth, cultural investment, and tourism driving development from Ljubljana to Tirana, international studios are taking note—and ZHA is leading the charge.
What makes their approach so potent is that it transcends architecture.
Each ZHA project aims to reshape not just skylines, but public imagination. In that sense, Belgrade’s future Tesla Museum will not simply house artifacts—it will become one.