© Mark Barkaway

As reported on bdonline, Zaha Hadid is currently the preferred suitor for the London’s Design Museum. The Pritzker Prize winning architect has apparently wooed the sellers with her plans to turn the 1950s building into an architecture museum. She has reportedly teamed up with a private backer and is one of eight pursuers for the Design Museum, which will be relocating into a new home in 2014.

Continue after the break to learn more.

Originally used to ripen bananas, the building has been occupied by the Design Museum since 1989. It contains over two floors of exhibition space and a restaurant on the first floor, which will remain under current terms.

The building is expected to sale between £4 and £7 million. Proceeds from the sale will be used to help fund the £80 million cost of the Design Museum’s new building at the RMJM-designed Commonwealth Institute in Kensington. Here, Pawson will redesign the interior while OMA draws up the plans for the surrounding residential development.

The new home will be three times the size of the original museum and will presumably draw in 500,000 visitors each year.

Reference: bdonline
Photo by Flickr user Mark Barkaway, licensed through Creative Commons.