{"id":14918,"date":"2016-09-24T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-09-24T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/architizer.wpengine.com\/david-adjaye-on-the-future-of-the-museum\/"},"modified":"2022-05-31T08:17:58","modified_gmt":"2022-05-31T12:17:58","slug":"david-adjaye-on-the-future-of-the-museum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/architizer.com\/blog\/practice\/materials\/david-adjaye-on-the-future-of-the-museum\/","title":{"rendered":"Cultural Crown: David Adjaye’s Smithsonian Museum Combines Iconic Details with Timeless Humility"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cIn many ways, there are few things as powerful and as important as a people, as a nation that is steeped in its history. Often America is celebrated as a place that forgets. This museum seeks to help all Americans remember, and by remembering, this institution will stimulate a dialogue about race and help to foster a spirit of reconciliation and healing.\u201d<\/p>\n

These powerful, provocative words encapsulate the vision for the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture<\/a> in Washington D.C., which opens today. Arguably the United States\u2019 most significant cultural project so far this century, the museum was conceived by an architect well-placed to take on such a challenging design brief.<\/p>\n

British architect David Adjaye<\/b><\/a> has a personal affinity with people of African descent living in Western countries, having been born in Tanzania and living in Egypt, Yemen and Lebanon before moving to the U.K. at the age of 9. Adjaye\u2019s brand of context-sensitive contemporary design \u2014 displaying qualities that frequently evoke Kenneth Frampton\u2019s ideas on critical regionalism \u2014 was deemed a perfect fit for a museum overflowing with cultural complexity.<\/p>\n

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\u00a9 Alan Karchmer<\/p>\n\t<\/div>\n\n

The Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Washington D.C.; p<\/i>hoto by Alan Karchmer, v<\/i>ia Newsdesk<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n

Adjaye\u2019s design draws on vernacular Yoruban art and architecture, taking the form of a bronze-clad crown or corona that appears to reach toward the sky to express \u201cfaith, hope and resiliency.\u201d According to the institution, the museum will be \u201ca centerpiece venue for ceremonies and performances, as well as a primary exhibition space for African American history and culture.\u201d<\/p>\n

Before the building’s grand opening, Architizer sat down with David Adjaye to discuss the challenges of museum design, the potential for cultural buildings to change cities and the future of this key architectural typology.<\/p>\n

Paul Keskeys: A simple question to start: What is a museum to you?<\/b><\/p>\n

David Adjaye: As a civic building, the role of the museum is increasingly not only to exhibit the collection, but to provide access to a collective consciousness while offering the chance for dialogue between different generations and social groupings. There is a sense that the museum of the past is full of conventions. But the museum of the future doesn\u2019t have to be. There are of course finite parameters. You may need linear meters or kilometers of wall. There are certain climatic issues. These establish a clear mandate.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe \u2018archive\u2019 or even simply the \u2018temple to beauty\u2019 are somewhat faded ideas.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But that mandate is also an opportunity for invention. Thinking about what an institution should look like, and how a museum should work with its audience, is something that is still playing out and has never been absolutely resolved. It\u2019s something that\u2019s an ongoing experiment and, thankfully, will never be unravelled, because it keeps shifting. We live in a time where the \u201carchive\u201d or even simply the \u201ctemple to beauty\u201d are somewhat faded ideas. What is needed instead are museums which are about an engagement with people, an engagement with a dialogue, with a discussion of art and an engagement with different ways of collecting and different ways of seeing the world.<\/p>\n

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The Museum of Contemporary Art in Denver<\/a> by Adjaye Associates<\/i><\/p>\n

How are programmatic requirements of museums changing with the advent of new technologies and globalization?<\/b><\/p>\n

Scale and light is ever more important. The diversity of media and variety of scale requires an enfilade of experiences, tailored to the work, rather than a standardized white cube. With the Museum of Contemporary Art in Denver, for example, the intention behind the design was for the architecture to \u2018support rather than define the museum\u2019s mission.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cA museum\u2019s presence is not confined to the physical building \u2013 there is a fourth dimension \u2013 a global dialogue.\u201d <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

With no permanent collection, the MCA is host to a program of visiting exhibitions and for this reason the brief specified internal flexibility. Rather than a single, large, flexible space, the client was interested in developing an alternative museum typology, taking the dimensions of an artist\u2019s studio as a starting point for the galleries. The idea was to reference brick factories, townhouses and the in\u2010between spaces as a guide to scale the volumes.<\/p>\n

These three urban typologies come together to create the different scales of spaces in the museum. Also, like everything, a museum\u2019s presence is not confined to the physical building \u2014 there is a fourth dimension \u2014 a global and an urban dialogue. In this sense, the architecture needs to distill this discourse \u2014 not contain it.<\/p>\n

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\u00a9 Alan Karchmer<\/p>\n\t<\/div>\n\n

Detail of t<\/i>he Smithsonian <\/i>National Museum of African American History and Culture, Washington D.C.; p<\/i>hoto by Alan Karchmer, v<\/i>ia Newsdesk<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n

How do you design a museum that contains the past but must also be ready to accommodate artifacts of an unknown future?<\/b><\/p>\n

All of my work deals with this tension; it is not something specific to the museum typology. The interpretation of identity, history and memory is rooted in research. The starting point is always to gain an understanding of exactly these qualities and to use them as the essential drivers for the form and the materiality of the building.<\/p>\n

We then work very closely with the curators to envision a means to provide the flexibility for an organization to contain its historic as well as future collection, which may grow in sometimes unexpected ways. A useful parallel is the work I have done on library buildings \u2014 which have become community hubs for learning, interaction and engagement, rather than repositories for books \u2014 and the architecture has facilitated and responded to this.<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe it is better to try to achieve change by getting involved rather than by standing on the sidelines.\u201d <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Is it possible for a museum to be harmful? For example, if it is created by a state and contains what some may perceive to be artifacts of propaganda, should architects take on such commissions?<\/b><\/p>\n

I believe it is better to try to achieve momentum and change by getting involved rather than by standing on the sidelines. If the museum provides a space for civic exchange, then it can be worthwhile.<\/p>\n

How can architecture lend itself to the promotion of true cultural identity and balanced education?<\/b><\/p>\n

The simple act of building forces engagement. You can\u2019t ignore it. Things always happen from that, and the question is how we celebrate it or deny it. It is important not to be hampered or intimidated by the idea of difference \u2014 but rather to seek to be open and even speculative about the possibilities it offers.<\/p>\n

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\u00a9 Alan Karchmer<\/p>\n\t<\/div>\n\n

Fa\u00e7ade detail of the <\/i>Smithsonian <\/i>National Museum of African American History and Culture, Washington D.C.; p<\/i>hoto by Alan Karchmer, v<\/i>ia Newsdesk<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n

What was the greatest challenge in bringing the National Museum of African American History and Culture to fruition in D.C.?<\/b><\/p>\n

It is a building with many narratives \u2014 relating to the context, the history and the program. It is certainly a marriage of form with content. This narrative is articulated immediately by the silhouette \u2014 borrowing from the form of a Yoruba sculpture \u2014 while also resonating with the angle of the Washington Monument. Several other things absolutely came to mind in thinking through what this building should be and how it should work with the program that we were given.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis [building] can be understood as a metaphor for the less tangible bridge between cultures \u2026 \u201d <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

How do you add to such a fantastic master plan, one of the most significant master plans in the world \u2014 this incredible monumental core to the capital city of the most powerful country in the world? How do you understand its intrinsic nature, which is the idea of the pastoral and the ordered landscape? How do you make an end to the ordered landscape and begin the pastoral, which is the National Mall proper, and then open onto the Washington Monument grounds?<\/p>\n

In a way, I always conceived of this building as a kind of turning point, a knuckle, a joint, which articulates the two things, neither one nor the other, but bridging between the two things. This can be understood as a metaphor for the less-tangible bridge between cultures \u2014 ensuring that the African American story becomes a universal story. So, from the sensitivity of the master plan to the cultural discourse, I wanted to ensure that the building ends the mall properly and begins the monument.<\/p>\n