Spring 2014 Constructs Yale Architecture 2 Conversation with David Adjaye 10 Stage Designs of Ming Cho Lee 17 2013 Building Project 24 Faculty News 3 Conversation between Pier Vittorio exhibition review by Richard Hayes Perspecta 46: Error reviewed by Tribute to Alvin Eisenman Aureli and Peter Eisenman 11 High Performance Wood by Stephanie Tuerk 26 Alumni News 4 Conversation with Dan Wood Alan Organschi 18 Book Reviews Yale School of Architecture Books 5 Conversation between Craig Buckley 12 Architectural Forum by Brent Sturlaugson Corrections and Collections by Joe Day Yale at ARCAM, Amsterdam and Marta Caldeira Architecture Dialogues by Surry Schlabs Close Up at a Distance by Laura Kurgan Norman Foster’s Yale building 6 “Exhibiting Architecture: A Paradox” 13 Representing Urban Decay by Elihu Rubin Paradise Planned by Stern, Fishman 28 Spring 2014 Calendar symposium review by Kevin Repp Yale Women in Architecture and Tilove 9 Everything Loose Will Land in 16 Spring 2014 Events Pedestrian Modern by David Smiley Los Angeles exhibition review by Exhibition: Archaeology of the Digital 20 Fall 2013 Lectures Joseph Giovannini Symposium: “Digital Post-Modernities: 22 Fall 2013 Advanced Studios From Calculus to Computation” 2 CONSTRUCTS YALE ARCHITECTURE David Adjaye London-based architect David Adjaye, the spring Lord Norman R. Foster Visiting Professor discusses his design approach. He gave the lecture, “Work” on January 9, 2014. Nina Rappaport As an artist’s architect, how did you transition from small-scale house and studio projects to public projects, such as the libraries in London and Washing- ton, D.C., and even larger urban projects? How did this trajectory increase your engagement with architecture as a public and social art? David Adjaye The trigger was a series of competitions being held in England at a time when the reinvention of the public realm 1 2 was being discussed. Much of my work had been in the East End of London, a borough where ideas for new library programs were being planned and then came to prominence with committees that launched competitions for several buildings. I had to learn to deal with not only one building but also a new sequence of operations for a bigger infra- 1. Adjaye Associates, William structure. I had always been in a community O. Lockridge/Bellvue Library, of public intellectuals who have been very Washington, D.C., 2010. inspirational and nourishing in terms of the 2. Adjaye Associates, rendering of making of the city, so, when I received my the Smithsonian National Museum first public commission, I could articulate of African American History and Culture, Washington, D.C., 2013 what I was interested in doing. NR And then, in Washington, you 3. Adjaye Associates, Moscow carried out that creative and social process School of Management, Skolkovo, on a new set of libraries that had to address Moscow, 2010. community needs. How did you engage in the community issues as a non local architect? DA We had extensive stakeholder meetings, talking first about why it was “architecture” and not just “building.” The community realizes that architecture is more than the act of putting something together when there is an engagement in bringing up their collective aspirations. I am always 3 mindful to distinguish between designing with the community and letting the commu- nity understand what you are doing so that DA It is an anthropological approach, for the essence of the Constructivist diagram, taken on as a narrative, as if it were a collec- there is confidence in the delivery and the and it is concerned with how we are evolv- and people say it looks like something tion of experiences that make sense in this expectation of quality. Community engage- ing now. I am less and less convinced by they’ve seen before, but there is no similar grand symbol. In the end, it’s about denying ment is about opening up what we do and universal approaches and more and more building in the canon. Rather, it is a collage of particular tropes such as atriums or certain listening to public concerns. It is important to persuaded by specifics. I think universals can painting, strategies by Malevich, and certain Classical ways of building. There’s never a respond to not only practical but also philo- exist in certain mechanics; but, even then, thoughts by Tatlin, so it looks familiar. If you large atrium but a cavity. There’s a certain sophical voices. it extends to specific rules. simply repeat a trope, you are making a way of experiencing volumes or the section. NR It’s interesting to hear you talk about NR How do you approach the specific deafened statement; if you think that repeat- There’s an idea of being between things, so the design process in this way, particularly characteristics of a place such as Ghana, ing it communicates its authenticity, then you you can see content and your position within in light of the social issues involved in your where you have an office and numerous have completely lost the plot. it—where the architectural resistance to the current work in Africa. There, we can see projects? NR Your design for the National labyrinthine creates a conscious relationship. the benefits of your having grown up around DA Ghana is very precise. It’s equato- Museum of African American History and You are always between things. The Classical the world in your focus on regional and rial and coastal. It has both savannah and Culture, in Washington, was featured most narrative of a building is that you are fed into geographic characteristics, along with the forest. It also has a very diverse multicultural recently in your The New Yorker interview. it to terminate at something. Mine avoids community and the social aspects. How did society. There is a specific hierarchy in terms How has that commission changed your that strategy by creating a series of scenarios your decade-long study of African tradition, of the way the people see the world, and outlook, culturally and professionally, in that allow for options that engage you in landscape, and urbanism transition from they overlay that trope over any mechanism terms of pushing different design aspects, as particular ways while showing you options for an understanding of regional work and the of architecture or social construction. The well as the program and its content? disengagement. I would suggest that it is very environment to inform your own projects? culture creates a particular scenario that I am DA I think that commission is my career- much a black experience, if I can say that. DA It took years to crisscross the conti- very careful about. defining project, in the way that it is related NR What is the focus in your Yale nent of Africa and write the book Metropolitan NR For the Museum of Slavery and to politics and how the architecture arrives advanced studio regarding the potential for Africa, with Peter Allison, and I learned so Globalization, in Elmina, in design now, how at a form. It’s very rare that architecture has new types of factories in Bangladesh? much. But what it really opened me up to was do you incorporate your knowledge of place a symbolic role that is not trite, but there is DA I am not a full-time teacher, but, the realization that, in my early work, apart as well as the people? a moment when it comes together where every so often, I am compelled by certain from dealing with art, I was focusing on the DA Elmina is a very traditional fishing symbolism in architecture suddenly makes parts of the world, and the issues associated craft of making. In dealing with the commu- village that sits next to a cosmopolitan city, sense. It’s a rare moment, and I think we are with them, so, for me, teaching is a great nity, I was incorporating the notions of history, founded in the seventeenth century, called lucky enough to have one of those moments thinking laboratory in which students experi- place, and patterns. Returning to Africa, I Cape Coast. It is the site of the old slave in this project. ence a project directly while rehearsing it. realized that is how I think of geography is castle from which many African-Americans NR What was it about the program I will look at the fashion business and the more than just a school textbook; it is really began their voyage. So, we are trying to plan and the issues of housing history that were idea of the “other.” I am interested in how the the phenomenon of place, or the way in which this project to be nuanced about the myriad particularly challenging or rewarding? idea of architecture moves from one place place conditions communities, cities, and issues surrounding its multilayered historical DA Sometimes, it takes a stranger— to another and how factories have been seen societies that, in turn, form a place. When you engagement with the world. the insider-outsider you mentioned—to as having universal, objective functions, move around a lot, you start to realize how NR How do you design a project incor- look effectively at things that are incredibly which has created terrible social problems. explicitly those geographies inform the ways porating the heritage of the region without emotional to a community. I think that’s what I’m captivated by seeing the students grasp of cities and places. There is a very primary making it nostalgic or trite? And, particularly I brought—a very wide-angle gaze. I had a the idea of labor as a fundamental part of geography in Africa, and it was surprising that as an insider-outsider, how do you make clear sense of wanting to present the infor- civilization.