29/03/2016 HARDtalk

What difference can the design of a building make? Can architecture

inspired people to think differently or perhaps even behave differently?

My guest is one of the most sought after architects in the world

today. Amongst his many buildings, the Nobel Peace Center in Oslo, the

business school, shopping centres in Beirut and Lagos, the Children's

Hospital, housing project. And about to open his biggest project yet. The

national museum of African-American history and culture sitting right on

the national mall in Washington. Has he got it right? What the test of a

new building? Given the history of this project,

the National Museum of African American History

and Culture, and its location, is it the biggest professional

challenge you have faced? It's been an eight-year journey

this year so it's been the biggest Eight years for you

but the first time this museum was Absolutely,

it's been a long time coming. The director of the museum,

Lonnie Bunch, said no matter what you've done

and what you do, this will be the Highly likely.

I can't question that. Here we are a few months from its

opening, it's almost complete now. It's almost complete,

it opens in September this year. Are you where you want to be,

are you in a position where you think, this is what I envisaged,

this is what I wanted to do? When I go to Washington now,

the site's been opened and the city can see it, the gardens have been

planted, apart from the snow, that has taken them down, but the site

has been planted, it is there, you can see the presence

and the relationships we worked on for many months

and years suddenly makes sense. When do you decide

if it's been a success? When people walk in

and start using it the way we think If that happens and

if they make new discoveries that add to the qualities we imagined

then we know it's a success. And in terms of its reception,

when the reviews come in We can't do anything about reviews,

some people will love it and some It's

a building that's not background. It's really something that makes

a statement In the world that we live in where

issues about how our cities are made up of different diversities and

groups from different ethnicities, this project goes straight to that

sort of discussion because it talks about the nature of America

and how its communities are brought And it talks about a very important

community who were used for commerce to make America who feel they have

been sidelined and who now have It is on the Mall surrounded

by neoclassical buildings. Which is why Robert Stern, Dean

at Yale of School of Architecture, said, "It doesn't seem to have

a strong relationship to them. "Some people would say that's good

but I would say maybe that's not I actually admire him because I

think he's a great thinker. What he's not realising is we're not

making We didn't want to mimic

the neoclassical architecture that was around but we wanted to take

clues from it. We are making a classical building,

I would argue. It has symmetrical facades, it is

four sides that are symmetrical, It refers to the Washington

monument, there's an obelisk that refers to Egyptian architecture,

not just Greek architecture, It's unpacking that Washington is

much more compex than the Greek neoclassical language, something

that embraces and goes back to the beginnings of the origins

of architecture in terms of Egypt's history and its influence

on what becomes European, classical architecture, but it talks

about modern architecture A black person,

a black American going up to that What does it make them feel

and think? I think knowing that the building

is there makes them feel they are very much part of this nation, they

are very much You could put anything there

and say that. Absolutely.

What is different? When you were designing it,

what is it that does these things Architecture sadly is silent,

it relies on people engaging When the first person saw

a classical building they didn't think it was a temple,

they were told it was a temple, they This building has

an incredibly powerful story. It talks about the story

of the African-American community and the references being made

in terms of the form. It's not

an arbitrary functional form. It's a functional device

on the building, it's a corona which creates

the first environmentaly leads building on the Washington Mall,

so a highly sustainable building. But it uses at the geometry

of an African heritage, the Yoruba heritage,

which was basically to look at the sculpture of the shrine houses

of the Yoruba, which is where... In that part of West Africa,

a lot of the African-American community came

from that we now know, using DNA tracking, we know that a large part

of that community came from that. I wanted to make a slightly romantic

reference to the long history of this community, not just the

American history but to say they came from Africa, they crossed the

ocean, they came to America, but the details of the building aren't

specifically African, its hybrid. The details are ones that look

at the work of the African-American slaves, the ironwork of Charleston,

Louisiana, taking the classical language and

working with it and I love that. You designed this

but you are not American. Even the director

of the museum acknowledged a lot of people felt it had to be designed

by a black person but specifically What's been the reaction to the fact

that here you are, born in Tanzania, I applaud the jury

for taking me because I think the African-American story is really

a story of black modernity. If you really is

an explosion where black culture is embedded deep in white culture,

but then has to develop really fast in the 20th century, in the 19th

century to have its own identity. But some people will say, look,

what about using an American? After all, isn't it a continuing

part of the problem of exclusion? I would say that it is really

a shame that at this stage, even at that stage eight years ago I was

probably one of the few prominent architects of colour that had

actually risen through the ranks and won competitions

and not just been handed out work I had won international competitions

against the field and had built my reputation and

built up my name through my work. What they found was I had risen to

a point where I could demonstrate the capacity to do that work,

to do such a project of such complexity, and, you know, I would

not have any sense of, sort of, I think in architecture,

it's very difficult to say a person from the ethnic country,

or the national country, has to be Looking at St Petersburg,

it was built by Italians. The world is much more complicated

than national boundaries. Let's look at something right

in the centre in Paris, Built by of course by

Richard Rogers. He said of that, it's a very

powerful moment when he built something of such huge significance,

which this is to America. It does crazy things to your career

where you kind of mushroom and it creates complexities, and you

must be so aware of that now. Yes, it conflates

and expands things, it allows you to Who would have thought I would

have been here talking to you? At the same time it is also

a tough subject because it is when architecture really gets

into the public psyche the way normal architecture within

libraries and schools don't come up You're dealing with political issues

suddenly, and I'm talking about politics with

you when I'm really an architect. Let's talk about politics

and library, because you are one of the front

runners for one of Barack Obama's. I am very lucky to be

in the shortlist The presidential library

to be built in Chicago. I think the shortlist said it

doesn't have to be an American, it recognises that architecture is

an international universal language of our civilisation

and humanity and there are three That is a big statement

about their intent, that anyone can You talk about the new language

we need in public buildings. People typically look back when

they should be looking forward? I don't mind looking back,

I think that it's important But architecture has for

so long been embedded in codes in the way we want to create

exclusions or separations. I think we are in a century where we

have finally begun to become very aware of our planet

and our ralationship to it, and I think it makes us responsible

stewards to make things on the planet which have agency

in terms of understanding exactly where they are, their geography and

context, but also acknowledging the I mean their democratic ideals,

their beliefs about what they think I think architecture can harness

those lessons and make buildings which actually

exemplify and embody those things. A complete contrast,

let's go to Rwanda, you are building a children's

hospital just south of Kigali. A rather different project, and

the first of its kind in Africa. Cancer is a major problem

of the 20th and now 21st-century. I love what President Obama said

in his State of the Union address, let's do a moonshot to try

and get rid of cancer, But here we are on the continent

of Africa and if you need specialist care

for children then you have to go to If you don't have funds for that,

how do you do it? It is part US and also African

investment, but it's a global investment that recognises this is

important and it needs to happen. The site that has been chosen is

Rwanda because it is centrally located in terms of the continent's

geography, it has enough It's also not just a hospital,

it is a training centre for other doctors in the region to

use it as a place to get expertise. You approach a design like that

and you think differently in terms of everything,

not least what you can afford. In Rwanda, we're thinking here's

an architecture that needs to It's right in the heart of the

tropical forest of Africa, the dense It can't look

like any hospital anywhere else. It's talking about cancer care,

so it has to have inspiration. Some of the studies

about cancer care now is people actually have to be uplifted

and some of the great projects that have looked at this talk about

connecting people back to nature. This idea of reconnecting people

back to the environment but also making an environmental

response that shields and shades, doesn't create an alien object, also

some of the language I want to work The geometry you see on the skin of

the building and the way that it is organised is based on understanding

Rwandan vernacular architecture, the patterns women make as geometries to

adorn their buildings. We've taken that not just to make

patterns, but we wanted to use computer technology to turn them

into shading devices Are you suggesting that the

building is part of the treatment? People can get better if they are

in a good building? The quality of the built environment

can inspire a person to feel better about themselves, which encourages

their body to feel better. It's how the building

makes you feels about... It's not so much about style, it's

not so much about aesthetics, is it tastefully done or not, is there

a certain integrity that makes you feel comfortable and gives you a

sense of well-being and comfort, and an ability to be inspired

by the environment. In the end, architecture is a series

of environments to inspire us I In a sense what you are trying to

do with the museum in Washington It is almost

an intellectual exercise. There has been a great deal of

focus, not least by David Cameron, a couple of weeks ago suggesting he

wants to transform 100 housing estates across the country, and he

talks about a warm family home, you open the door and you are confronted

by criminals and drug dealers. These places design

in crime rather than out. It is not

the concrete creating criminals. Many wealthy people live

in concrete buildings. Japan has more concrete buildings

than anywhere else and is part It is a question of investment

and support. With housing, post-war architects

had to build housing quickly because we had a serious war that

everyone had come through, no We didn't learn from the lessons

of the past and build in networks and infrastructure

supporting dense communities. You can't have a tower in a field

of grass with no support, no shops, You cannot build these buildings

without looking after them. If he goes ahead with this,

does this regeneration, that's not If you look at Sheffield,

Parkhill Estate, which is very famous, which everyone thought was

a bunker, they have refurbished it, very elegant, and it is one of the

most desirable places in Sheffield. When your fridge is out of date,

you don't keep it because... They say that the riots in 2011,

three quarters of those lived It is about making them

sustainable and creating this Even the Joseph Rowntree Foundation

charity says it is true that poor You would say to keep the buildings,

give them maintenance and care but you are putting something

alongside them? Put in infrastructure to

support the community. Put in a doctors surgery,

infrastructure to support These are lots of people living

in singular types of buildings. We have so many strategies

for how to do it. What has happened is we have left

these communities What would a David Adjaye redesigned

housing estate do for crime How far can you claim to make

a difference? I think that people

very much reflect... There's a thesis which says that

if your environment feels poor and downtrodden,

you will feel aggressive If your environment is well invested

in and looks as if it supports communities, different age groups

and communities, it is harder to There are many examples to

prove that is the case. Someone approaches you

and you say what? Give me this money

and I can do it...? Make the analysis of these estates,

analyse them, Sometimes materials invented

in the 50s are no longer healthy. We do things we think are right

at the time. With housing estates it is critical

to support them with the right kind of community support

so that they are places for all age groups, for all kinds

of diversity and walks of life. Some of them are

but they become enclaves. If you got your hands on it it could

still end up being a brutal high-rise tower but because of what

else you add to it you change it? Yes, some materials will be

worn out and you redo those. He is absolutely right that there is

crime in these places but the answer is not to bulldoze the architecture,

the answer is to analyse that architecture and see what support is

needed and I say that because I don't think we should trash

buildings and take them down I think we should analyse things,

look at the evidence and see how we Listening to you,

I am reminded of one of your critics who described you as allowing your

eloquence to run away with you. The criticism has been made

of the buildings as well. Rowan Moore, critic at the Observer,

has said there is a tendency for the story of the design to

outrun the realisation. He was speaking about

Whitechapel Library. What we were doing

when we were looking at the library was to encourage as many people

as we could to go to the library. When we built it,

we found a year later that there People did not know where

the entrance was. The escalator was shut down

and people said, With the analysis

of the conversation it was all about It was sad for me

for him to do that because he knows that community and that it is one of

the most used libraries in London. You were involved in a project

in New York , Sugar Hill, which was described variously

as two dark grey blocks. The Guardian called it

a blocky concrete citadel. New York magazine called it grim,

and an arty fortress. I think critics are absolutely

allowed to say what they want and I think the idea of architecture is

not to make everyone happy, They want to interrogate

and check things, If you go to the building

and ask them what they love and hate about it, no one says it is

the colour that is a problem. The apartments are designed with

bamboo floors, environmental systems, they have a creche for

145 kids, they have an urban farm. I am looking

at how people are using things, and what are the patterns and to

see where we have made mistakes. I am very interested

in the afterlife of buildings, I don't just like to build

buildings and walk away. What do you hope to hear

when you eavesdrop on passers-by? The happiness and joy of being

in the environment it has created. That it is contributing to

the betterment of life. You are

in an extraordinary position. You have commissions

from all over the world. You are influencing public life,

effectively. And yet the year that you were asked

to do the Smithsonian Museum in Washington was the year

your company nearly went under. I was trained as an architect,

not a businessman. I have had to learn the business

of running 100 people my own way. You could not be

in that situation again? I think we could put in all

of the kind of infrastructure that would help us not to get

into that situation naively. I got into that situation naively

because I won a lot of competitions and I started to do them without

thinking continuation of business. Someone comes to you

and says I want you to build one I would not be interested

if it was about aesthetics. If it was about understanding

density and contributing to how it can be exemplar and how to

use energy efficiently, then yes. I am not interested in it

as a brooch or a badge. There is a fashion

for very high rise. A lot of people link it to

the egos of the architect. There are a lot of architects who

love doing that but it is not what I I'm interested in architecture

that is contributing to the subject, Cities will grow exponentially -

more than 50% of the world live in cities and it will grow even more

in 15 years. There will be 41 mega cities

around the world with over 10 It won't be

about wonderful countryside villas. It will be density

and infrastructure and that is the issue to focus on and that is

what inspires me as an architect. David Adjaye,

thank you for coming on HARDtalk.