Features
Vogue Celebrates David Adjaye and The National Museum of African American History and Culture
Knoll in the News
The July 2016 issue of Vogue celebrates David Adjaye in the article "Making His Mark: With His New Historic Design, Architect David Adjaye Has Hit the Top." The piece, which discusses Adjaye's formidable career in the context of the recently completed National Museum of African American History and Culture, includes the photographer Anton Corbijn's portrait of the architect seated in The Washington Skeleton Aluminum Side Chair in copper finish, part of The Washington Collection for Knoll™.
The National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C., will open to the public on September 24 of this year—two days, as Vogue points out, after Adjaye's fiftieth birthday. "It is by far his most important building to date," writes Dodie Kazanjian for Vogue, "and one of the most keenly anticipated monuments of our time."
Like many of Adjaye's designs, the building reflects the architect's research and perspective about memory, heritage and history, as well as about form, circulation and program. It is the result of years of research, design and construction—a project that has influenced other areas of the Adjaye Associates practice. For example, Adjaye's furniture collection for Knoll, The Washington Collection, arose from themes that been preoccupying Adjaye while he was designing the landmark museum. In fact, as Vogue states, The Washington Skeleton Chair was designed specifically with the museum in mind; parallels may be drawn between the chair and the building's metallic scrim, whose patterning serves both ornament and function.
The article also discusses Adjaye's deepening interest in "the way entire cities are made." At Knoll, this perspective manifested in the architect's first collection of textiles, The Adjaye Collection for KnollTextiles, released to critical acclaim in 2015.
Vogue's piece concludes with a quote from the architect: "I always think I'm just beginning, but I've made it through. I feel like now I'm at the height of my abilities."