“David Adjaye: Making Memory” at Design Museum, London
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The Design Museum in London is all set to roll out its new exhibition, “David Adjaye: Making Memory,” featuring seven of the celebrated architect’s monumental buildings and memorials. Starting on February 2, the exhibition will be on view through May 5“David Adjaye: Making Memory” at Design Museum, London
The Design Museum in London is all set to roll out its new exhibition, “David Adjaye: Making Memory,” featuring seven of the celebrated architect’s monumental buildings and memorials. Starting on February 2, the exhibition will be on view through May 5, 2019, offering viewers a close-up of the British-Ghanaian architect’s richly layered conceptual approach to structures, like the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, as well as his proposals for major memorials. The seven buildings were almost literally hand-chosen by Adjaye, whose architecture firm spans the globe today with offices in London, New York, and Accra, along with umpteen projects under way in a host of countries. The show at the Design Museum is special because, as described by Architectural Digest, “it reveals Adjaye’s distinctive talents in forsaking the very notion of one-dimensional steel- and glass-clad towers. In eschewing static structures frozen in time, he serves up complex, dynamic projects that often reflect troubled eras ranging from the troubling chapters of the African-American history, to the horrors of the Holocaust.” Even the presentation of this show is ingenious. The Architectural Digest writes, “Consider the gallery dedicated to Adjaye’s National Cathedral of Ghana in Accra, where a veritable canopy comprised of richly patterned Ghanaian umbrellas references the religious building’s undulating roof and the very culture that sparked the building’s design.” Describing the significance of the exhibition, the museum states in its press release, “The form that monuments take and the way that they are used is constantly changing. Monuments are a record of who we are in the world and what we have done. They are deeply ingrained in our psyche as a way of memorializing our triumphs and failures. Through this exhibition, celebrated architect Sir David Adjaye OBE presents a new architectural narrative for the monument where architecture and form are used as storytelling devices.” Adjaye was born in Tanzania to Ghanaian parents and occupies a central place in today’s star-studded world of architects. After moving to the UK, Adjaye studied architecture at the London South Bank University and the Royal College of Art before setting up his first office in 1994, which was later renamed as Adjaye Associates in 2000. His work of creating striking private houses for artists and high-profile clients in London led to several new notable public buildings in the city, like the Idea Stores and the Stephen Lawrence Centre. Adjaye’s influences range from Contemporary art and music to science and African art forms. A case in point is his proposal for the Coretta Scott King and Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial in Boston, as described by Architectural Digest, “underscores a particular time in history and offers up opportunity for reflection. The entire surface of the memorial will be engraved with text from their speeches. And Adjaye takes the very font of the text to a new level in that the African-American artist Adam Pendleton will reinterpret it hand in hand with the type designer David Reinfurt.” The Design Museum’s exhibition represents one of the most recurring themes in Adjaye’s works: monuments and memorials, which he represents as complex spaces of public memory, which can elicit raw emotional responses – from celebration to loss. The exhibition is on view from February 2 to May 5, 2019, at the Design Museum, 224 - 238 Kensington High Street, W8 6AG, London. https://www.blouinartinfo.com/ Founder: Louise Blouin Read more