One of the most remarkable models in the opening room of British architect David Adjaye’s first major exhibition in the United States — a comprehensive mid-career survey at the Art Institute of Chicago — is that for “Elektra House.” However, it isn’t notable so much for its radical design as for the completion date printed on its plinth: the residence was finished in 2000, kicking off a career that has seen Adjaye Associates design over 50 completed buildings in only 15 years.
This extraordinary rate of productivity has aided the architect’s meteoric rise to prominence within the profession, but the expansive collection of drawings, photographs, models, and full-scale mockups on display in Chicago illustrates that attention to detail need not be sacrificed despite this prolific record. The exhibition is entitled “Making Place: The Architecture of David Adjaye,” in reference to the architect’s appreciation of context in countries possessing a diverse range of geographical, cultural, and political settings.
Adjaye’s early works
The opening room comprises a plethora of pedestals displaying all-white models of Adjaye’s early works, primarily residential projects in his home city of London, United Kingdom. However, as you move through a corridor lined with sketchbooks to the first space dedicated to the architect’s public projects, you gain a palpable sense of Adjaye’s growing penchant for much larger, more programmatically complex buildings.
Façade sample and model for the Stephen Lawrence Centre, London
The first exhibit in this area — a full-sized fragment of façade from Adjaye’s Stephen Lawrence Centre in London — powerfully communicates the architect’s eye for detail, juxtaposing a 1:1 scale mockup with the more traditional mediums of models and drawings. This combination of scales is repeated numerous times throughout the exhibition, offering up tactile chunks of architecture to go with the conventional modes of graphic representation.
Model, built photograph, and façade mockup for Sugar Hill, New York
Highlights in the second room include beautifully stylized drawings and a detailed model of a silk-weaving facility proposed for Varanasi in Northern India. Closer to home, a large-scale model of the Sugar Hill affordable housing development in New York is coupled with striking photographs of the newly completed structure. A concrete cladding sample reveals the subtle rosebud reliefs that dot the exterior of the building, which also houses the newly opened Children’s Museum of Art and Storytelling.
Moving upstairs, one is greeted by more mockups on a dramatic scale that is so rarely seen in architectural exhibitions. First, a 12-foot-tall cladding panel matching the bold, crimson skin of the soon-to-open Aïshti Foundation stands tall alongside a 1:100 model of the Beirut complex. Most striking of all, though, is a gleaming lattice of bronze-coated aluminum panels, the highlight of an in-depth section dedicated to Adjaye’s most significant project to date: the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, set for construction in Washington, D.C.
The exhibition terminates in a final room containing a single, fully built project. Walking through the “Horizon” pavilion, one enters another world in which views are framed by a faceted skin of dark timber slats. This “building within a building” encapsulates the strongest elements of the show: architecture is meant to be inhabited, and much can be learned from the immersive installation that forms Adjaye’s finale.
The Smithsonian commission will surely secure his place at the top table of star architects currently practicing around the world, but, if Adjaye’s portfolio is anything to go by, this is not evidence he will resort to the kind of “brand” architecture adopted by many of his illustrious peers. Adjaye has consistently designed in response to the idiosyncratic context of each site, and it is this approach that will stand him in good stead for major projects moving forward.
For now, though, this retrospective of completed and planned works constitutes a vivid portrait of Adjaye’s evolving career to date and makes for essential viewing for anyone passing through the Windy City for the inaugural Chicago Architecture Biennial this fall.
Making Place: The Architecture of David Adjaye is on show at the Art Institute of Chicago until January 3.