The three-story building, designed by David Adjaye, looks almost like a palace from the ancient Kingdom of Benin.
On Friday, the architect, the British Museum and the Nigerian authorities also announced a $4 million archaeology project to excavate the site of the planned museum, and other parts of Benin City, to uncover ancient remains including parts of the city walls.
— The New York Times
In October 2019, Adjaye Associates was selected to design a new museum to house historic artifacts looted by colonial powers in Benin City, modern-day Nigeria. Designs for this planned Edo Museum of West African Art were unveiled on Friday.
"We are proposing an undoing of the objectification that has happened in the West through full reconstruction," said Ghanaian-British architect David Adjaye in a statement. "The new museum design reconstructs the inhabitation of these forms as pavilions that enable the recontextualization of artefacts. Decoupling from the Western museum model, this museum will perform as a reteaching tool — a place to instill an understanding of the magnitude and importance of these civilizations and cultures."
"Adjacent to the Oba’s Palace, the new EMOWAA draws inspiration from its historical architectural typologies and establishes its own courtyard in the form of a public garden, exhibiting a variety of indigenous flora and a canopy that offers shade – a welcoming green environment suitable for gatherings, ceremonies and events," explains a brief description on the architects' website.
"The galleries float above the gardens and are articulated by a series of elevated volumes — an inversion of the courtyard typology — within each of which sit pavilions which take their form from fragments of reconstructed historic compounds. These fragments allow the objects themselves to be arranged in their pre-colonial context and offer visitors the opportunity to better understand the true significance of these artefacts within the traditions, political economy and rituals enshrined within the culture of Benin City."
5 Comments
Handsome looking render but what about the design is vernacular? Based on the description, the design seems informed by climate and environment (as it should) rather than some specific local cultural condition.
Looks very vernacular to me, reminds me of West-African mud buildings and thereby automatically informed by climate and environment, as that is the local condition ;-)
What's funny is that Adjaye avoided using African motifs and patterns here like he did in the US projects, where he had to emphasize the vernacular language even though the buildings are nowhere near the continent.
The Sub Sahara African cultures are so varied and diverse I don't think any building is big enough to carry all of the possible motifs. The museum Adjaye designed in DC is about African American culture and history so plastering that building with African motifs wold not be appropriate. However his unique design and the sense of something vernacular to Africa is probably appropriate as it symbolizes the destruction of culture during the violence of slavery which is the shared history for the majority of Americans of African decent. The motifs are lost but the sense of African culture remains.
I love David Adjaye but this article about the "undoing of objectification" shows up right next to one on how he is working with aston martin on custom high end aston martins to go with high end custom condos... maybe they undid all the objectification on one project to put extra objectification in the next one?
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