David Adjaye: Bringing African Design Home

By Michelle Linden

For generations, architecture in the UK, and indeed the world, has been dominated by older white men, with little room for women, minorities, and representatives of other cultures. Slowly but surely, this community is being infiltrated by architects that better represent the British public and its imperialist past. Among these architects is rising star David Adjaye. Born in Tanzania to Ghanaian diplomat parents, David spent his early formative years traveling throughout Africa before settling in the UK to complete his education and begin his architectural career. As Mr. Adjaye’s fame rises, becoming known not only in the UK, but throughout the world, it becomes easy to typecast him as an African architect. Indeed, many of his ideas are borne of African architectural, planning, and design ideals, but these concepts have become design informants rather than dictators of particular typologies.

Adjaye Associates, Nobel Peace Centre. Photos by Tim Soar. Courtesy of Adjaye Associates.

While impossible to distill the entire African continent’s design aesthetic into an all encompassing ideal, there are a few artistic themes that are consistent throughout. Highly abstracted and rhythmic designs are more prominent than representative art. The organization of these abstracted forms and patterns lends itself to be understood as much through the imagination as through immediate visual impact. This cerebral view of art is furthered through the abundance of sculpture. Across the continent, three dimensional experiential artwork has historically taken precedence over 2d works. Sculpture, architecture, and even two dimensional artwork such as textile designs are generally intended to be experienced in the round, where the space created, contained, or interrupted by the artwork is just as important as the art itself. This concept of positive-negative space has directly affected the design and use of African public space. In cities, public life takes place in the markets and streets, with citizens occupying the 3d network created by the absence of buildings. The relationship between experiencing the three dimensionality of the city and the experience of sculpture and its surrounding white space is clear.

Influenced by his early life traveling throughout Africa, as well as his more recent documentation of African cities, David Adjaye has begun to include some of these African design principles into his western architectural projects. Three such projects successfully incorporating these concepts are the Museum of Contemporary Art in Denver, The Nobel Peace Center in Oslo, and Rivington Place in Shoreditch.

Adjaye Associates, Rivington Place. Photos by Ed Reeve. Courtesy of Adjaye Associates.

The Museum of Contemporary Art is an interesting investigation into public and private space whose influence of African planning and design on its form may not be immediately apparent. The building, standing solemnly amid the large plaza, functions as a collection of spaces organized as a mini city. The co-mingling space created in-between the various rooms is crucial to the experience. The energy of these informal networks is reminiscent of the energy found in the daily markets of African cities.

The 3d and urban qualities of African design are also evident in the design of the Nobel Peace Center, a collaboration with Chris Ofili (an African born UK artist). Because Adjaye was not permitted to make significant changes to the existing structure, he opted to create a pavilion space that is equal parts three dimensional sculpture and building. The tube-like pavilion interrupts the path of travel for dignitaries and the public visiting the Peace Center, engaging them in ideas of urban space. Once inside the building, visitors pass through a series of similarly designed spaces, reflecting the exterior architectural insertion. The sculptural qualities of the building and public space are at once African, and yet completely modern in their application.

Rivington Place has a particularly evident African graphic historicity. Designed to house the Institute of International Visual Arts and the photographic agency Autograph ABP, the rhythm of the interior informs the materiality and volume of the exterior. That volume is enclosed in a skin whose perforations and lattice pattern were directly inspired by a Sowei mask from Sierra Leone. This element of public exterior sculpture and pattern making becomes a focus for the building without sacrificing any functionality, enhancing the African concept of 3d space in art.

Adjaye’s work uniquely incorporates many of these African concepts of space and form into a modern western application, rather than providing simplified reiterations of African designs. The resulting works are truly modern structures with a subconscious memory of Britain and Africa’s joint past. Whether inspired by the graphic nature of a piece of African art or craft, or inspired by the energetic use of public spaces, Adjaye succeeds in developing this unique ethnic and architectural blend, helping to invigorate an architectural and cultural attitude that has long ignored its imperialist history.

Michelle Linden is an architect based in Seattle (USA) and author of the blog Atelier A+D.