--- title: Q&A with Architect David Adjaye | TIME description: The architect David Adjaye talks with TIME about moving past signature architecture and collaborating with Brad Pitt canonical: https://time.com/video/8CBVxL71/ og:title: Q&A with Architect David Adjaye og:description: The architect David Adjaye talks with TIME about moving past signature architecture and collaborating with Brad Pitt og:url: https://time.com/video/8CBVxL71/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/8CBVxL71/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Q&A with Architect David Adjaye twitter:description: The architect David Adjaye talks with TIME about moving past signature architecture and collaborating with Brad Pitt twitter:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/8CBVxL71/poster.jpg?width=720 --- # Q&A with Architect David Adjaye > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: Q&A with Architect David Adjaye [Watch (HLS stream): Q&A with Architect David Adjaye](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/8CBVxL71.m3u8) (5:39)  _Published 2012-09-10. The architect David Adjaye talks with TIME about moving past signature architecture and collaborating with Brad Pitt_ --- Jul 27, 2023 3:27 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [Long Island Architect Charged in Connection with Gilgo Beach Serial Killings](/video/FhXBYkCt/) ### Long Island Architect Charged in Connection with Gilgo Beach Serial Killings [Brad Pitt Talks About Red Carpet Clash With Prankster](/video/fo2PdPbd/) ### Brad Pitt Talks About Red Carpet Clash With Prankster [The Legacy and Return of Architect Eero Saarinen](/video/YBH5LGHg/) ### The Legacy and Return of Architect Eero Saarinen --- ## Transcript Young architect David Adjaye has an impressive array of buildings from private homes, to libraries, to galleries, to even a museum for the Smithsonian. He's here to deconstruct some of them with us. Mr Adjaye welcome. Thank you. I know architects really hate to describe their work, but would you say you have a signature? I think that for my generation the idea of signature seems B a bit outdated. Only because I think we believe in an architecture that is responsive. And if you believe that every place is different, even though we are, you know, walls and floors and ceilings are the same, there are nuances in their characters and their social forces that make places different. Well that's. That's fine as a, as a philosophy. Hm. But, the fact is you're the artist. [ LAUGH ]. But you are. And if I were to be presumptuous here and say I would go with a sort of a decorative minimalism. No, no I think that you can describe the work in many ways. But I, I don't bring things into the project which. Which I, just to kind of make them different. It's, it's really to try and find qualities which I think resonate with the user, in the end, or the client group. Your father was a diplomat. Yep. And you lived in a whole bunch of different cities. Yep. When you were a kid. Yep. Do you think that being a diplomat's kid helped you. With clients and with buildings and the press? [ LAUGH ] I mean I think what's, what's great about having a, a set of, an international education and meeting different people from a very, very young age is that you quickly learn to negotiate differences. And you quickly learn to negotiate very worldly varying opinions. You know, I, I, from a very young age, was having to discuss the difference between Sikhs and Christians and Muslims. Now, whether it makes me a better person with clients, I don't know. But, [ LAUGH ] [ INAUDIBLE ]. You've collaborated with a lot of other artists. Chris Ofili, Brad Pitt, Ewan McGregor, Jake Chapman. And with fashion designers. Like, you've got that new store, Proenza Schouler. What kind of artists are the most fun to design for? The people that you named I love working with. Because, essentially, there's a kind of great inquiry about what we both do. And that precipitates a dialog which allows us to actually intellectually push each other. What's really wonderful about working with a great creative person, is that they can tell when you're pushing them and when you're not. They can sense when the work is really rigorous or when it's just, you know, something you did. [ CROSSTALK ] [ LAUGH ] Yeah, so they come in and go well you know. Can, we do better? You've designed two new public libraries in Washington. In Washington, yeah. And you also did those library buildings in, as you say, in Whitechapel. Yeah. Do you have a particular affection for libraries? I do like libraries. I think libraries are profoundly important pieces of public infrastructure. Beyond building, I think they are just things that are necessary to to idea of just civilization and you know, being, being I am fundamentally humanist in my outlook. I think that access to collective scenarios that are about information or just dialogue with different generations are really powerful parts of how we organize society. So the library is one of those models in that that I think is really Profoundly important. Do you have a favorite building in Africa? Colonial or other wise? I have several, several structures that I like very much. [ INAUDIBLE ] Right. Is very important in [ INAUDIBLE ]. But also Lalibela in Ethiopia is a very beautiful monument. There's some beautiful buildings on the islands of Zanzibar. Stone, stone architecture of that region is, is really very powerful, because it's a sort of, it's a colonial interpretation which actually completely understands its local context and uses materiality and the technology of the local context to something quite unique. So even though it's a colonial. Sort of diagram that comes it's, transformed by it's specificity. So, do you think the you know, architecture of Africa has been, overlooked, or do you think it's still in a sort of a nascent phase, where we. Well, I think that there's a kind of moment that is occurring with Africa, you know, I mean, the last five years, the growth of the continent has been the greatest anywhere in the world. And I think that's a really exciting period. So, there's that kind of re- emerging moment of discussing what African architecture could be. It will be 20 years before we can actually have that discussion, cuz I think things have to be done. You know, and I always say, you know that. Africa is 50 years old from its colonial shackles. It's really still in the kind of beginnings of defining what it is. The good things are, we can avoid, on the continents, very silly mistakes about sort of the way in which infrastructure and certain kind of planning ideas played out in the middle of the 20th century. Hm. Which have actually made certain cities inefficient and exhausted, and, and depressed. What are three things anybody could do to their house that would make it more livable. Make a conscious decision to try and understand how the light works in your house. As min no matter how little, how maximum or sort of amount it is. And, and I think make adjustments to enhance the quality of light in your space. So if your space is dark, use mirrors. Use reflectivity. To enhance it. Because I think that there's a profound relationship between well being and the quality of light in, in, in the [ INAUDIBLE ] environment. Mr. Adjaye, thanks very much. 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