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Quote by David Adjaye

“Buildings for me represent opportunities of agency, transformation, and storytelling. They are not just artifacts. There is this big tradition of buildings-as-artifacts - constructed artifacts - but for me they are these incredible sites of negotiation.”

Quote by David Adjaye

Author

David Adjaye is a renowned architect, born in 1966. His architectural works are known for their unique style and profound insight into social culture. Adjaye's buildings are spread across the globe, including museums, cultural centers, and residential projects. more

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“The houses [my first project in London] were reactions to the condition of the city and my frustrations with the norms that were being played out. In a way they were slightly subconscious but reactions to that condition and a way to posit new possibilities within certain pervasive norms.”

Way Firsts Certain House Cities Conditions Possibility Projects London Reactions Frustration Subconscious Norm New Possibilities Being Played

Author:David Adjaye

“The thing about architecture is that it's an art [you] simply learn more by doing more. It's one of those things that is really not an art about thinking, but doing. So in a way, what it has done is greatly intensify the way that I build.”

Thinking Way Art Done Architecture

Author:David Adjaye

“The first 10 years, I was just building just to understand what I was doing and I didn't trust my intuition to just produce. Then, in the last five years, I have really been reflecting on what I am producing and what it is doing.”

Years Firsts Lasts Five Produce Building Intuition Five Years Reflecting Last Five Years

Author:David Adjaye

“In a way, I feel I have enough tools and knowledge now that when I build it has a very specific agency that's very conscious. It's no longer speculative; it's really constructed. I'm very interested in how that consciousness, about how I am producing, is working within different conditions. It's like growing up.”

Way Feels Different Enough Consciousness Growing Up Growing Conditions Conscious Tools Agency

Author:David Adjaye

“What I resist is techniques. I find techniques very problematic. So when critics talk about my work in those terms, I find that they miss the condition. I am comfortable with the notion of pattern and ornament as a system of organization, [but] for me it acts as a textile. So it's not about pattern, but the notion of architecture through the lens of textile, rather than architecture through the lens of brick and mortar.”

Term Conditions Missing Comfortable Organization Critics Notion Patterns Architecture Technique Lenses Bricks Ornaments Mortar Textiles Bricks And Mortar

Author:David Adjaye

“The museum in D.C. is really a narrative museum - the nature of a people and how you represent that story. Whereas the Studio Museum is really a contemporary art museum that happens to be about the diaspora and a particular body of contemporary artists ignored by the mainstream. The Studio Museum has championed that and brought into the mainstream. So the museums are like brothers, but different.”

People Art Different Stories Body Happens Artist Particular Brother Studios Contemporary Narrative Museums Mainstream Ignored Contemporary Art Diaspora

Author:David Adjaye

“In some conditions, the architecture of textile is more relevant than in other conditions or the opacity of the material form. Pattern in the world of scarce materiality and a hybridity becomes a way of creating a new authenticity. Sometimes there is a certain kind of nobility of a group of materials literally of the earth, which had a certain nobility of presence, but is very different from the materials we have now.”

World Way Kind Different Sometimes Earth Form Certain Groups Conditions Materials Creating Patterns Architecture Authenticity Relevant Nobility Scarce Textiles Materiality Hybridity

Author:David Adjaye

“If you just live in New York and you only know New York, you know a certain kind of condition of formality and informality. By being able to go to another context and to be able to use that as a counter foil to the context you know, you are about to see a wider range.”

Ifs Knows Kind Use Able Certain Conditions New York Range Just Live Formality Foils Informality

Author:David Adjaye

“In a way, going to Africa allowed me to see possibilities that sometimes seem impossible in certain conditions. It also allowed me to see opportunities for material strategies. I hate it when people think I went and got something [from Africa] and brought it here. It's more about how it affects the way in which I work and affects [my] creativity.”

People Thinking Way Sometimes Seems Certain Hate Opportunity Creativity Impossible Conditions Possibility Materials I Hate Strategy

Author:David Adjaye

“It's not just that I love bacon so much; I feel like something about bacon reflects my personality. It's salty and it's bad for you and it's delicious. I just love it so f - ing much, that's why.”

Feels Personality Delicious Like Something Salty

Author:Cara Delevingne