David Adjaye

In London, a cube floats above rows of brick buildings and blends in with the sky on a partly cloudy day. Much like a cake, it is built in layers, though these layers are each composed of vertical beams of color and light. It is the award-winning Idea Store in Whitechapel, a building that represents what the BBC calls “the library of the future.”

David Adjaye of Adjaye/Associates, architect of the Idea Store, was born in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, to Ghanaian diplomats. Since completing his studies at the Royal College of Art in 1993, the London-based architect and theorist has built or won ten public commissions, at an age before many architects have built a single structure. His projects range from private residences in London and Nanjing, China, to public commissions, such as the Nobel Peace Center in Oslo, Norway. Each building exhibits a myriad of global influences, such as west African sculptural forms and electronic music. Though celebrated internationally by architecture critics for his conceptual approach to building design, Adjaye is relatively unknown in the United States.

Making Public Buildings introduces Adjaye’s architecture to American audiences by carrying viewers through his working process-from inspiration to completion-through ten projects, both built and uncompleted. Co-organized with the Whitechapel Gallery in London and designed by Adjaye/Associates, this is Adjaye’s first solo architecture exhibition in North America, though he is no stranger to museum exhibitions. Studio Museum visitors may remember Adjaye’s 2005 collaboration with Chris Ofili for Afromuses, one of his many visual art collaborations, which also include the T-B A21 Olafur Eliasson Pavilion for the 51st International Art Exhibition at the Venice Biennale in 2005.

David Adjaye
Making Public Buildings