Designed by David Adjaye, the red-hued building comprises an enclosed campus complete with four wings ranging between four and seven stories each  and connected by a series of open-air interior courtyards. These are punctuated with by large overhangs that produce shade and relief from the sun and heat. Inspired by a desert typology, the low carbon concrete structure’s open-air courtyards span the first and ground floors and are punctured by water features and native planters to improve air circulation and provide cooling.

The almost 32,000m2 campus is set to include spaces of varying scales and character in order to host classes and seminars while also hosting a research library and climatised archive facility as well as a flexible auditorium and performance space, a restaurant and cafe, and a bookstore.

The entryways on each of the four facades of the building will welcome the public while also connecting  the campus with surrounding institutions and public walkways. The Africa Institute will also be commissioning artists to create site-specific installations throughout the public spaces of the new building.

“I am deeply humbled for the opportunity to design The Africa Institute in Sharjah, a project which introduces an entirely new type of thinking and mission into the global academic arena,” said Adjaye, founder and principal. “I envision the new campus as a springboard for the concretization of the incredible history of Africa, the African diaspora, and the Arab world.”

The Africa Institute’s president Hoor Al Qasimi said: “We selected David Adjaye to create the first purpose-built home for this vital institution because of his experience in designing buildings that foster learning, collaboration, and community building.

“We started working together in 2017 so that the vision for The Africa Institute and the building that supports its critical mission would be developed hand-in-hand. David’s ability to create such a beautiful sequence of diverse spaces and welcoming sense of place will make The Africa Institute a nexus for knowledge-building and learning that will serve people in the region and our partners across Africa and around the world for generations to come.”

Since its establishment in 2018, The Africa Institute has organized international symposia and conferences, art exhibitions and artist commissions, film and performance series, and public programs. Beginning in 2023 – when the building is scheduled to open – the Institute will welcome its inaugural class of M.A. and Ph.D. students in the field of African and African diaspora studies and also launch certificate programs in African languages, helping shape the next generation of leaders in the field.

The development of The Africa Institute is spearheaded by Salah M. Hassan, who was appointed its founding Director in 2018, working in close coordination with the Institute’s president. The Institute has already launched an annual country-focused season exploring one African country or diaspora community in depth each academic year, beginning with Ethiopia in 2018-19 and continuing with Ghana in 2021-2022.

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Excavation works will take place prior to the construction of the museum and will continue for a period of five years. The project is developed with the approval of the Benin Royal Court and the Edo State Government, and in partnership with the National Commission for Museums and Monuments as well as a range of partners from local communities.

Images courtesy of Adjaye Associates.

The new museum, which will house West African art and artefacts as well as contemporary collections from the continent, aims to create new ways of engaging local communities and reconnecting people with their history. It is also focused on reuniting important Benin artworks and artefacts that had been looted during the invasion and destruction of Benin City by British forces in 1897; a time where the Kingdom of Benin was established as one of the most important and powerful pre-colonial states of West Africa, and a major trading state. The city’s shrines, royal chambers and storerooms were ransacked, and thousands of objects of ceremonial and ritualistic value were looted. Benin City remains renowned for its castings in brass and bronze; one of the most prominent artefacts looted from the Kingdom is the Benin Bronzes, including several hundred plaques that depict narratives of the life of the Kingdom. Many of these artefacts are currently on display across museums in the UK, Europe and the USA, with the British Museum currently holding over 900 objects from Benin, including more than 100 that are on public display.

For Adjaye, the museum is an opportunity to reclaim and reteach the history of the ancient Kingdom of Benin through an interrogation of its “thriving civilisation” that predated its colonial history.

“There is an incredible legacy handed down to us by our ancestors that has largely been unheard or close to forgotten,” Adjaye tells identity. “EMOWAA is not intended simply as a space in which the Benin Bronzes are returned but a space in which history is re-situated and re-understood. The artefacts are sacred objects that hold the ability to restore the stories of an ancient kingdom and renew the ancient intelligence of the African past. For me, the possibility of re-storying history through disrupting and decentralising typologies of architecture is something that plays heavily in my works, and the possibility of doing this on African soil will, I believe, spark an African Renaissance.” He adds that the integral first step towards restitution is establishing the infrastructure that will enable the return of these artefacts.

“The conception of this museum entails an interrogation into a particular trajectory of colonial history, to uncover West Africa’s thriving civilisation before the colonial encounter,” Adjaye continues. “The project asks what a museum on the African continent in the 21st century can really be, and in this sense it occupies the temporal scales of reclaiming the past in a post-colonial moment and to use this reclamation as a re-teaching tool in the present to ensure a re-storying of history and ancestral wisdom to influence future generations.”

The architectural proposal for EMOWAA connects the museum with its surrounding landscape by revitalising and incorporating the surviving remains of the walls, moats and gates of the historic city. Inspired by this historical architectural typology, the museum’s design includes a courtyard in the form of a public garden with various indigenous flora and a shading canopy, creating a green space for gathering, ceremonies and events.

“In the way that the artefacts connect through ritual to the people, the museum connects through its spatial design to the community by providing an infrastructure to gather for social events, outdoor and indoor festivals, ceremonies, lectures and education spaces,” Adjaye explains.

A series of elevated volumes float above the gardens, making up its galleries, within which sit pavilions inspired by “fragments of reconstructed historic compounds” that allow the objects to be arranged in their pre-colonial context. This creates a scenario in which visitors can better understand the true significance of the artefacts and their significance within the culture of Benin City, from traditions, politics and economics to rituals.

“EMOWAA operates both as a museum and a community centre meant to engage visitors on a global and local scale,” Adjaye explains. “The objects and artefacts once seized from Benin were intrinsically connected to rites and ceremonies of the Benin people, some even recording historic events of the Kingdom’s past. This is an archival history that provides a great advantage to Nigerian and international scholars, as well as the larger community, who now have the opportunity to understand their history.”

It is hoped that the archaeological finds uncovered during the excavations, which are set to begin in 2021, will be retained in their original position in order to become part of the visitor experience of the new museum.

“The architecture of EMOWAA is in intimate conversation with its archaeological counterpart, and what is represented internally or programmatically through the representation of Benin history is also represented externally or architecturally. The archaeology is used as a means of connecting the new museum through design into the surrounding landscape,” Adjaye says.

Read more: David Adjaye to receive 2021 RIBA Royal Gold Medal

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Personally approved by the Queen of England, the accolade is awarded by the RIBA to a person or group of people who have had a significant influence “either directly or indirectly on the advancement of architecture”.

Adjaye is also the first black architect to receive the prestigious accolade.

Smithsonian National Museum of African American Arts and Culture, Washington DC. Photography by Nic Lehoux.

“It’s incredibly humbling and a great honour to have my peers recognise the work I have developed with my team and its contribution to the field over the past 25 years,” Adjaye said.

“Architecture, for me, has always been about the creation of beauty to edify all peoples around the world equally and to contribute to the evolution of the craft. The social impact of this discipline has been and will continue to be the guiding force in the experimentation that informs my practice.”

Ruby City, San Antonio, Texas

RIBA President Alan Jones said: “It was my absolute pleasure and honour to chair the committee and be involved in selecting Sir David Adjaye as the 2021 Royal Gold Medallist.

“At every scale, from private homes to major arts centres, one senses David Adjaye’s careful consideration of the creative and enriching power of architecture. His work is local and specific and at the same time global and inclusive. Blending history, art and science he creates highly crafted and engaging environments that balance contrasting themes and inspire us all. I believe his both practising and teaching in schools of architecture has significantly enriched his work. His artistic and social vision has created public projects that perfectly demonstrate the civic potential of architecture – fostering empathy, identity and pride.

“David’s contribution to architecture and design globally is already astounding, and I am excited that we have so much more of it to look forward to.”

 

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Adjaye is behind notable buildings across the globe including the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, the Moscow School of Management Skolkovo  and  Ruby City in Texas.

Abrahamic Family House in Abu Dhabi, UAE

Having recently revealed his proposal for the Princeton University Art Museum, Adjaye is also set to design the Africa Institute building in Sharjah, UAE, dedicated to the advanced study, research, and documentation of Africa and the African diaspora in the Arab world. His other projects in the Middle East includes the Abrahamic Family House in Abu Dhabi and the Aishti Foundation in Beirut, Lebanon.

Aishti Foundation, Beirut, Lebanon.

He founded his practice, Adjaye Associates in 2000 in London, and now has offices in New York and Accra, where he is currently working on the National Cathedral of Ghana.

Adjaye was knighted in 2017 for services to architecture, following an OBE in 2007.

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