March 13, 2019 UT Hosts Architect of Smithsonian Museum Sir David Adjaye in Public Lecture April 15

Sir David Adjaye OBE will present a lecture on April 15, hosted by the College of Architecture and Design.  The lecture will be held in the auditorium of the Student Union located at 1502 Cumberland Avenue on UT’s campus.  It begins at 5:30 p.m., and doors open at 5 p.m.  The lecture is sponsored by General Shale and is free and open to the public.

Free parking is available beginning at 5 p.m. in White Avenue parking garage, 1621 White Avenue.

Adjaye is recognized as a leading architect of his generation. Born in Tanzania to Ghanaian parents, his broadly ranging influences, ingenious use of materials and sculptural ability have established him as an architect with an artist’s sensibility and vision.

In 2000, he founded Adjaye Associates, which now has offices in London, New York and Accra, Ghana, with projects in the US, UK, Europe, Africa, Asia and the Middle East. His largest project to date, the $540 million Smithsonian Institution National Museum of African American History and Culture, opened on the National Mall in Washington, DC, in fall of 2016 and was named Cultural Event of the Year by the New York Times.

In 2017, Adjaye received a knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II for services to architecture and was named one of TIME’s 100 most influential people.

Other prominent completed projects include the Idea Stores in London, which were credited with pioneering a new approach to library services (2005); the Moscow School of Management SKOLKOVO (2010); and the Sugar Hill mixed-use social housing scheme in Harlem, New York (2015). An ongoing project includes the just-announced National Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre in London.

Adjaye has amassed numerous accolades for his visionary work, including the Wall Street Journal Innovator Award in 2013 and the 2016 Panerai London Design Medal from the London Design Festival.

He is known for his frequent collaborations with contemporary artists on installations and exhibitions. Most notably, he designed the 56th Venice Art Biennale with curator Okwui Enwezor (2015).  That same year, a comprehensive retrospective exhibition of his work to date launched at Haus der Kunst in Munich and the Art Institute of Chicago and was subsequently shown at the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art in Moscow.

Adjaye has held distinguished professorships at Harvard, Princeton and Yale universities. He has also taught at the Royal College of Art, where he studied, and at the Architectural Association School in London.

For 45 years, the UT College of Architecture and Design has hosted leading architects and design professionals through its Robert B. Church Memorial Lecture Series and more recently the Governor’s Chair Lecture Series and General Shale Lectures to enrich the education of its students and elevate the profession in the community.  In 2018-2019, more than a dozen professionals from around the world will lecture at the college.  For details, visit archdesign.utk.edu/events/lectures.