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| Tuesday, February 23rd, 2016

  

David Adjaye lectures on his latest work

Peter Rigali
TECHNEWS WRITER

David Adjaye OBE is recognized as
a leading architect of his generation. Adjaye
was born in Tanzania to Ghanaian parents
and his influences range from contemporary
art, music and science to African art forms
and the civic life of cities. In 1994 he set up his
first office, where his ingenious use of materials
and his sculptural ability established him as an
architect with an artist’s sensibility and vision.

Adjaye Associates now has four
international offices, with projects throughout
the world. These include a shopping and
cultural complex in Beirut (ongoing),
a concept store in Lagos (2014), a new
headquarters building for the International
Finance Corporation in Dakar (ongoing) and
a hospital in Rwanda (ongoing). Adjaye has
taught at the Royal College of Art, where he
had previously studied, and atthe Architectural
Association School in London, and has held
distinguished professorships at the universities

of Pennsylvania, Yale and Princeton. He is
currently the John C. Portman Design Critic
in Architecture at Harvard. Followed by a
plethora of awards and commissions located
globally.

David’s understanding of
architecture derives from his acknowledgement
that quality design is a superposition of
fundamental ideas. As in intentionally
represented professional his investigations
always start with a close examination of the
cultural district that he is trying to effect. He
views his work as temporarylandmarks in time
that highlight the history of a demographic as a
formal narrative. He most specifically does this
by collecting cultural tropes as the backbone
for his forms and then abstracting them to a
constructible model.

His lecture consisted of a 5 project
dialogue lasting just over the course of a short
hour and a half. During this time he started
with his 2013 project, The Gwanqu Pavilion
or The River Reading Room, which sits on
the banks of the River Gwangju. The Pavilion

Student org feature:

Abhinaya Iver
TECHNEWS WRITER

An integral part of college is having
multiple organizations that help students find
their hidden potential, whether it is being an
artist or a leader. IIT has a large number of
organizations, some very well—known while
others’ exists are more hidden. It’s of utmost
importance that their existence to everyone is
known, so that theymay use full potential of the
organizations for future endeavors. This week,
I would like to introduce the Art and Digital
Design organization, which is a newly formed
organization on campus for all those students
interested in arts, but at the same time would
like to work on a computer. This organization is
head by Saya Nassyr, a freshman at the college
of Architecture. The club’s aim is to bring artists
together and expose art to those people who

dropped it as a class in high school. With the
proper guidance and resources, they believe
every student can unlock the artist within
them. Some may question why it is important
for a tech school to have such an organization.
Their simple answer was, “A tech school lacks
art and it is a hidden opportunity not everyone
has explored, in order to do that people need
the right guidance and resources, for which we
are here for.” Art is a form of expression which
many times inspires people to do work on new
things.

The idea to set this up was thought
of last semester, wherein people wanted to
fuse art with the digital form and produce
designs. “We made many changes along
the way,” quotes Migel Santos, one of the
founding members. Yet, with all the changes,
they believe the organization is working to

, :

encourages interaction between the city’s
inhabitants through the exchange of books.

The design allows for the open
circulation of exactly 200 books, symbolizing
the loss of 200 student lives at The Chonnam
National University in May 1980. Conceptually
the structure asks what is a Library with
out walls, and will it be successful? Literally
making the building a public experiment while
using infrastructure as a nodal point makes
a statement of the communities well—crafted
respect for one another.

He finished with a detailed
presentation of his recent work The National
Museum of African American History and
Culture(NMAAHC), a 500 million dollar
project currently underway. Located in
Washington, D. C. this project expressly makes
a stance to not overtly outshine the already
stacked monuments in the area. The goal was to
unfold the narrative in a museum format using
specially chosen emotional artifacts (some of
which needed to be moved in as construction
was underway because of their size). The real

conceptual push here was to create a building
that acts as a lens to view D.C. while making
the commentary of society “sweeping under
the rug” the atrocities of African American
oppression starting with slavery. The building
does this by excavating 80 feet downward to
house the bulk of the objects. Viewing this time
in history like a set of unearthed ruins of a by
gone time and the hindsight approach to cover
it up. The facade is a free standing skin based
from an abstracted geometry pulled from the
traditional lattice iron work, very commonly
found in traditional southern architecture.
While making the point that it was in great
numbers the highly skilled artisans drafted to
America from their home of Africa who
created a majority of these masterpieces. Its
worth noting that the industrial revolution
promoted the increase in iron work, while the
laborer’s traditionally favored wood.

It is Adj aye’s devotion to
understanding culture as a thread and using
that to weave urban fabrics which made his
lecture inspiring.

Art 8 Digital Design

a better cause and has been successful as of
now. They believe in working together and
combining the requirements of the people to
produce the wonderful designs that they have
been working on for the past few weeks. “The
more we spend time with the people, the more
we understand their expectations and the
more we mold our ways to suit theirs,” quoted
Donell Daniel, one of the founding members.
They plan on working with design fields the
rest of the semester and having a final exhibit
at the end, in a professional manner.

Many students who know about this
organization fear that they may need some
prior knowledge in art or design. But according
to the president Saya Nassyr, “There is no
need of such knowledge. It is a way of fusing
new ideas together and have an experience
in the digital world. Sometimes, all we need

 

is a small fire to start a forest fire. A small
burning passion is all that is needed to join this
organization. We present with possibilities that
people shouldn’t be afraid to try, but rather
enjoy the experience.” Prior to having fun
designing, they also help in portfolio building
and acquiring skills in design software.

Currently, the organization meets
every Monday from 5 pm. to 6 pm. at the
MTCC, by the post office. Their future plans
add field trips and to rise beyond the horizon
of the MTCC. They have a variety of different
expertise that includes: video designing,
jeweler making, design templates and much
more. The organization is just a start—up but
seems to be of great success and they hope to
continue the same for the future.

Photos by Abhz’naya Iyer