{"id":7503,"date":"2016-02-18T17:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-02-18T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/architizer.wpengine.com\/adjaye-cooper-hewitt\/"},"modified":"2022-05-31T09:31:27","modified_gmt":"2022-05-31T13:31:27","slug":"adjaye-cooper-hewitt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/architizer.com\/blog\/practice\/materials\/adjaye-cooper-hewitt\/","title":{"rendered":"Architect as Curator: Adjaye Explores African Heritage at the Cooper Hewitt"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a recent exhibition at the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, a series of vibrant African textiles hung like tapestries from an intriguing custom-built structure surrounded by a display of woven African hats. The special installation was the curatorial vision of architect David Adjaye for the program \u201cDavid Adjaye Selects,\u201d which closed this weekend. (Incidentally, Adjaye also designed the display system specifically for this show.)<\/p>\n

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Born in Tanzania and raised by Ghanian parents, the London-based architect and designer cited textile design as a fundamental influence in his projects. Their geometries and abstractions figure prominently in such buildings as his Moscow School of Management SKOLKOVO<\/a> and the National Museum of African American History<\/a>, the latter of which is a much-anticipated project scheduled for completion this year.<\/p>\n

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Adjaye\u2019s exhibition was the result of 11 years spent traversing the African continent, visiting nearly every capital city and learning each region\u2019s distinct culture and history. In Africa, textiles are everywhere: wrapped around children, hung up in homes and sold on streets. The architect sees these objects as \u201csocial agents\u201d that have the power to bring people together and communicate a sense of place.<\/p>\n

Each textile is loaded with memory: Adjaye himself remembers being wrapped in a pattern during his childhood and, now, exercises the same practice with his son. \u201cInherent in their production and design,\u201d he wrote for the exhibition\u2019s brochure, \u201cis narrative about culture that I consider absolutely critical to the practice of architecture.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Like many progressive architects, Adjaye believes the built environment should be responsive to the unique geography and culture of its surroundings. \u201cIn our current globalized world, architecture can often feel imposed, offering a spectacle of modernity rather than specific and contextualized paths into the future,\u201d stated Adjaye. \u201cThis is of particular concern in Africa, where we are only very recently coming to understand the continent\u2019s distinct expression of modernity.\u201d Adjaye is less concerned with building something that feels new than with creating a structure that feels relevant to the present. Great design doesn\u2019t mimic the past, but it does consider its influence.<\/p>\n

Textile design, with its fractal geometries and mesmerizing patterns, is also inspirational to Adjaye in the formal sense. How textiles use color, repetition and scale to play with a viewer\u2019s perception and create illusions of depth has influenced many of his fa\u00e7ades: look no further than Rivington Place in London, the Francis A. Gregory Library in Washington, DC, or the Sugar Hill Housing<\/a> complex in New York City. His chair design<\/a> for Knoll, too, incorporates patterns borrowed from African textiles.<\/p>\n

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The Cooper Hewitt thus drew a fascinating connection between the curator\u2019s research process and the architect\u2019s design process. Both curators and architects act as mediators of history, making creative decisions about what should be kept and what should be altered. Both roles must address deep histories without dismissing them as static. It is Adjaye\u2019s engagement with complex historical narratives that makes his architectural projects and, now, his curatorial work so powerful to behold.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a recent exhibition at the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, a series of vibrant African textiles hung like tapestries from an intriguing custom-built structure surrounded by a display of woven African hats. The special installation was the curatorial vision of architect David Adjaye for the program \u201cDavid Adjaye Selects,\u201d which closed this weekend. (Incidentally,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"architizer_featured_type":"projects","architizer_featured_image":"1491658","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,7],"tags":[23],"architizer_project":[],"architizer_brand":[],"architizer_firm":[],"architizer_product":[],"class_list":["post-7503","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-inspiration","category-materials","tag-products"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nArchitect as Curator: Adjaye Explores African Heritage at the Cooper Hewitt - Architizer Journal<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/architizer.com\/blog\/practice\/materials\/adjaye-cooper-hewitt\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Architect as Curator: Adjaye Explores African Heritage at the Cooper Hewitt - Architizer Journal\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In a recent exhibition at the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, a series of vibrant African textiles hung like tapestries from an intriguing custom-built structure surrounded by a display of woven African hats. 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