A Name to Know: Architect David Adjaye

This is a baaaaaad man. From The Stimulist:

AGE: 42 JOB: Architect WHY YOU CARE: Because a National Museum of African American History will redefine Washington’s National Mall — and the African architect redefining modern architecture is building it.

Let’s be frank. When most people think of “starchitects,” white faces come to mind. In a field traditionally dominated by Western Europeans, West African architect David Adjaye is a bit of an exception. He’s also downright exceptional. When the New York Times reported on April 15th that Adjaye had been chosen to design America’s first-ever National Museum of African American History, we were overjoyed—and unsurprised.

We noted Adjaye on this site last month as one of the architects Brad Pitt chose to design houses for Katrina survivors in New Orleans. His resume includes the Nobel Peace Center in Oslo, Museum of Contemporary Art in Denver, the Idea Stores in London, homes for actor Ewan McGregor and designer Alexander McQueen, among others. But it’s the Museum of African American History that Adjaye, the son of a Ghanaian diplomat, describes as “the dream of his career.” As he so eloquently put it to the Financial Times, “This is an incredibly loaded site: it was once occupied by a slave market and the Mall itself was built by slaves. This was never a building about a single moment or an icon, but a building about a movement, about celebrating a journey and looking towards the future.”