David Adjaye’s 15 minutes gave a quick run through his research, which was recently exhibited at the Design Museum as Urban Africa. As I’ve already been over the exhibition I wanted to go over his explanation of it here.
As I mentioned in my last note about the exhibition, I really liked the casual display as well as the large number of pictures displayed. So hearing him explain that the exhibition works as a sort of archive for the public was very satisfying. Plus I just really liked the idea.
He went over the topography of Africa, the north and south are desert while the middle area is pretty much forest. But as a premise to how he explains the architectural influences of the continent, he noted that he prefers to break it down based on the nature of human habitation on terrain rather than border identity politics. That makes very practical sense, so I really like that too.
From there on he explained the differences of the different areas of Africa looking at how to map the vernacular relating to the topography and their influences on architecture. But of course, today, it is difficult to leave out colonial influences, French, English, etc.
more on the exhibition: article & podcast from Dezeen
2 comments:
IS VERY GOOD..............................
I had the good fortune to see David Adjaye in person during a visit to Denver, CO, USA. I vae always liked his work and was saddened that he was not chosen to complete the current SFMOMA extension in San Francisco. I feel his style & vision would have melded well with the existing structure much better than the chosen Oslo based Snøhetta Architects.
http://stylembe.wordpress.com/2009/06/23/mca-starchitect/
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