Examining the idea of how architecture and form are used as storytelling devices, Sir David Adjaye’s objective in “Making Memory” is as a provocation or a question to the public. The exhibition opens with a survey of monuments from the Acropolis of Athens (447 BC) to the 2018 Millicent Fawcett statue by Gillian Wearing in London. It then presents seven projects by Adjaye, who is known for his preference of projects with a social agenda, which include the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington DC, the Sclera Pavilion in the Southbank Centre, London, the Gwangju River Reading Room and the proposal for the Coretta Scott King and Martin Luther King Jr Memorial.
Commenting on the exhibition, Adjaye says; “The monument is no longer a representation, it is an experience of time and place that is available to everyone. Whether it is for a nation, a race, a community, or a person, it is really used as a device to talk about the many things facing people across the planet. Democratisation does not mean that monuments cease to be relevant; it requires the monument to be transformed, so that it has an inbuilt openness and can be approached and understood from many points of view.”
Need to Know: David Adaye: Making Memory is at the Design Museum, London until May 5 2019; www.designmuseum.org
