David Adjaye — Textiles. Africa. Architecture.
This article first appeared in the Spring 2015 Design Journal, published by Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, in conjunction with the past exhibition David Adjaye Selects: Works from the Permanent Collection.
Architect David Adjaye curated and designed the twelfth installment of Cooper Hewitt’s ongoing Selects series — in which prominent artists, writers, architects, and designers are invited to explore and respond to the museum’s collection.
With offices in London, New York, Shanghai, and Accra, Adjaye is a truly global architect, with projects currently under construction on four continents, including the Smithsonian’s new National Museum of African American History and Culture building on the National Mall in Washington, DC. He has earned a reputation for seamlessly blending the aesthetics of African and Islamic architecture with classically austere, modernist design. Born of Ghanaian parents and having visited each of the continent’s fifty-four nations as an adult, Adjaye has been deeply inspired by the importance of textiles within the visual culture of Africa. Indeed, their forms and patterns are often reflected in his buildings. For his Selects exhibition, he mined the museum’s little-known collection of sub-Saharan textiles.
Susan Brown , Associate Curator of Textiles, worked with Adjaye on the exhibition and, here, talks to him about his process.
Susan Brown: Invited to select among our quarter-million design objects, it’s easy to imagine feeling overwhelmed, but you were very decisive in your selection. What attracted you to our collection of West African textiles?
David Adjaye: In my work, I am very much interested in dismantling overly simplistic narratives about Africa. This was one of the main impetuses behind compiling my book Adjaye, Africa, Architecture [2011]: to provide the global community with specific references to the incredible diversity within the continent. Cooper Hewitt’s collection of textiles, which have seen relatively little exposure, felt like an excellent chance to continue this project. These textiles, beyond being incredibly intricate and beautiful, tell an important story of regional specificity. Each of the textiles derives from a unique craft that has emerged from the particular histories and geographies of its makers. If there is any through-line in my body of work, it is exactly this: that art must draw on context to be emotionally resonant and culturally relevant. Otherwise, it is empty.
SB: You’ve designed a beautiful installation for the textiles. Can you describe your response to Andrew Carnegie’s Drawing Room (familiarly called the music room)?
DA: The installation was about resisting a passive experience of the textiles. I did not want them to be sprawled out or framed in a staid manner that allowed the works to be objectified or technicalized too much. These textiles were designed to be worn, lived in, and interacted with. I wanted to design something that I felt could encourage visitors to experience that kind of direct emotional relationship with the works rather than to view them as foreign or in any way clinically.
The specifics of the form took its housing room as inspiration. I was immediately struck by the music room’s incredible woodwork, the pattern of which I drew from when designing the cylinders on which to hang the fabrics. It was a way for me to capture the spirit of the room while still offering a new way to experience it, to bring its architectural elements into three dimensions.
SB: The project has also resulted in a collaboration with Knoll on a line of fabrics inspired by the ones in the exhibition, which will launch in September. Had you ever thought of designing textiles? How does it compare to designing buildings?
DA: Working with Knoll Textiles’s creative director Dorothy Cosonas on these textiles has been an incredibly exciting opportunity for me. Creative collaboration with artists and designers from different disciplines is not only very stimulating
for me, but it opens up a discourse about the art of making things that often provides sources of inspirations for my building designs. These textiles are very much geared toward space making and atmosphere; considering geometry, material, and texture for these purposes shares a design logic with architecture. This is why I have never drawn a distinction between the world of art and the practice of architecture; they are intrinsically linked.
However, architecture is an inherently public endeavour — the successes and failures of each stage are highly visible. It is an amazing luxury to be able to manipulate and sculpt — at full scale — as you go along, to make changes and adjustments in real time. I took a real delight in the samples from the mills, the mock-ups, and the sketches.
DAVID ADJAYE SELECTS is made possible by the Marks Family Foundation Endowment Fund.
