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David Adjaye contains a miniature city of art, learning, and social experiences inside the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver's enigmatic walls.
Cabbies’ ignorance is David Adjaye’s bliss. During the construction of the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver (MCA), whenever Adjaye took a taxi to the construction site, “the drivers would fly past it,” the London-based architect recalls. To be sure, the confusion had something to do with the MCA’s promontorylike spot in the new neighborhood Commons Park: The depression of adjacent 15th Street makes this three-story building difficult to spot. But equally important, Adjaye had intended his design to nestle into Commons Park rather than stand out. “I thought it was the best kind of compliment, because I wanted the building to be an urban experience,” he says of the U-turning drivers.
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The museum represents the first public commission in the U.S. for Adjaye, the 41-year-old phenom who already has amassed a portfolio of projects for high-profile clients ranging from actor Ewan McGregor to the Nobel Foundation. As one of Britain’s only prominent black architects, Adjaye also has been the subject of endemic debate pitting tokenism against architectural skill. The MCA, which opened in October 2007, will expose his talents to a wider audience and may help settle the discussion of whether Adjaye has ascended the meritocracy.
Clearly, Adjaye does not equate the top of the pyramid with icon-making. Recalling positions taken by peers like Foreign Office Architects and Allied Works, Adjaye conjectures that the fad of over-the-top museums is over. “The one-liner lacks depth and criticism,” he says. “It’s utterly easy, making any crazy form you want. I think the test is to try to find new programs and new scenarios that can be carried in content-led forms.”
His attitude is realized in a subdued, enigmatic exterior. Smoky tinted glass reflects the surroundings, and only the stray transparent window reveals museumgoers. Adjaye also eliminated overt signifiers. Instead of tacking a monumental front door to the building, for example, the architect tapered the corner of the ground floor from the plate above it and shrouded it in the building’s glass-and-MonoPan double skin, creating a procession mostly hidden from view. “I wanted to try setting up a new way of engaging entry [as] a performative element that initiates a trajectory into the building,” Adjaye says of this corner. The prolonged welcome is a technique previously attempted in Adjaye’s Idea Store Whitechapel, in London.
Formal name of project: Museum of Contemporary Art Denver
Location: Denver, Colorado
Architect:
Adjaye Associates
23-28 Penn Street
London N1 5DL
United Kingdom
Ph: +44 (0)20 7739 4969
Fx: +44 (0)20 7739 3484
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