M a r k e t N e w s
Architect David Adjaye Tells Us About Washington D.C.’s National Museum of African American History and Culture
Posted on : Thursday, 25th August 2016
British architect David Adjaye, born in Tanzania to Ghanaian parents, was already in his 20s when he visited the U.S. for the first time. But he now has a key role in conveying the American story. On September 24 in Washington, D.C., he will unveil his highly anticipated addition to the National Mall—the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC). On a recent tour of the building he noted that its location, at the center of the mall, has views of Washington’s most iconic monuments, among them the Lincoln and Jefferson memorials. “To an architect,” he says, “a site like this is humbling.”
Adjaye has worked hard to create a building worthy of that setting. In 2009 his firm, Adjaye Associates, led the design team (which included Philip Freelon, founder of the North Carolina–based Freelon Group, and the late J. Max Bond Jr., of New York’s Davis Brody Bond) that won the coveted museum commission, wowing the judges with a proposed rectangular glass edifice covered in cast-metal lattice. These screens angle away from the building in three massive tiers, giving the structure a distinctive shape inspired by the capitals on caryatids carved by West Africa’s Yoruba people. “From the moment you see the silhouette, you’re thinking of the journey,” Adjaye says, referring to the notorious Middle Passage of captured Africans across the ocean.
Source : www.architecturaldigest.com
