Design Museum to celebrate Yinka Ilori’s colorful additions to London’s urban fabric

“Yinka Ilori enlivens the public realm with installations and murals in a playful combination of colour and pattern,” the museum's curatorial head Priya Khanchandani said. “This display will bring to the museum his distinctive aesthetic, inspired by the African fabrics of his childhood and capturing the colourful geometric patterns that feature in Nigerian design, with a nod to British postmodernism.”

Ilori drew critical acclaim for this 2019 Dulwich Pavilion, which he built in collaboration with London-based architecture firm Pricegore. The scheme was designed with inspiration from the markets of Lagos, Nigeria, whose colorful textiles were translated into what Guardian critic Oliver Wainwright called a “spectacular temple of colour.”

The pavilion was one of two works by Ilori for the 2019 London Festival of Architecture, the other being a colorful installation within London’s Thessaly Road railway station. The work, titled “Happy Street,” created an inviting environment underneath a bridge using durable, low-cost materials.

More recently, Ilori took part in the Asphalt Art Initiative’s Bring London Together project, where the artist’s signature bold play with color was brought to the streets of London in the form of painted murals on street surfaces. London Mayor Sadiq Khan described the scheme as one that can “prove once again that the desire for safer, more welcoming, and more beautiful streetscapes is universal.”

Ilori’s free exhibition at the Design Museum, curated by Priya Khanchandani, will run from September 15th through June 25th, 2023.