It is art on water, sculpture powered against the force of the waves, design at its most dynamic: the hot new motorboat designed by Zaha Hadid for London-based art dealer and writer Kenny Schachter and his Rove Projects, which will first set sail next spring.

Bearing an uncanny resemblance to Darth Vader on the sea, the “Z-Boat” – an eight-meter vessel fabricated of fiberglass and carbon fiber  — will be offered in a limited edition of 12, each priced at about €375,000.  Current plans are to produce the boat in a range of colors, including white, gray, and blue  (though the black prototype model designed for Schachter himself will likely be the most popular). The project follows an earlier partnership between Schachter/Rove and Hadid, the Z-Car, a three-wheel model that never actually made it to production. (That prototype was exhibited in 2006 at the Guggenheim, New York, and made an appearance in the 2011 retrospective of Hadid’s work at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.)

According to Schachter, who has a long association with the Baghdad-born architect, the design’s asymmetry “is a distinctive element in the boating world, which lends the boat a strong sculptural (and a little menacing) presence.”  The interior, he says, will be “spec-ed out with a vinyl material new to the market,” articulating Hadid’s futuristic aesthetic.  And horsepower? “I am not certain,” says the London-based American, whom 1stdibs once called a “maverick,”   “but as high a spec as customers dare to go and is safe to maintain.”  (He admits he is “a bit of a speed freak” himself.) A press release sent out jointly by Schachter and the French firm Shoreteam which is charged with building the Z-Boat, further explains, “The idea is to think of vessels or vehicles as highly individualistic expressions of art, architecture and design, reflecting the edge of what is possible using the most advanced means, including materials, software systems, and methods of fabrication.”

Hadid, who became the first woman to win the Pritzker Prize in Architecture when she received the award in 2004 (along with many other such honors, including being named to Forbes’ “100 Most Powerful Women” and Time’s “100 Most Influential People,”  is not the first architect to take to the sea: architect Norman Foster of Foster and Partners produced a 131-foot luxury yacht, fabricated in Italy, in 2008, which Slate.com  described as “an oversized Prius” – hardly the uber-cool, elite geode of design magic the Z-boat promises to be. 

Pre-order yours right here.

This article was originally published in www.forbes.com on July 14th, 2012.


Kenny Schachter Commissions
Zaha Hadid to Build a Boat Fit for Bruce Wayne
by Janelle Zara

Kenny Schachter, the outspoken force behind London's Rove Gallery, may be the man who has everything. Not only is his home brimming with a mouthwatering collection of works by his blue-chip artists — the Campana Brothers' plush alligator chair, an Arik Levi's light sculpture, and the faux-hardwood basement floor by Richard Woods, just to name a few — his garage is no joke, either. Rove Cars, the automotive arm of his operations, boasts a 1983 Alfa Romeo, several Porsche models, and a Z-Car, the three-wheeled, 2005 Zaha Hadid commission that looks the way we imagine golf carts will in the near future. The only thing Wayne Manor has over the Schachter estate is the Batmobile, it seems, but even that's about to change.

The mega-dealer has tapped Hadid to create yet another vehicle for his personal use, this time on the water. Rather than designing the predictable — a fluid shape in a shiny metallic finish — Hadid has emerged with something more foreboding: a fragmented, angular vessel sprung from a Christopher Nolan movie. The all-black, 8-meter-long Z Boat (staying on-brand with its name), is being built by French manufacturer Shoreteam in a very limited edition of 12, slated for availability in early 2013. And next on Schachter's wish list, rumor has it, are a Rem Koolhaas-designed hybrid sailboat and yacht. It looks like somebody's building the world's first starchitect super-fleet.

Originally published in www.artinfo.com on July 10th, 2012.


For press enquiries or further information please contact:
Kenny Schachter
+44(0)7979 408 914 / schachter@mindspring.com