All language subtitles for The.Art.of.Architecture.S01E07.Episode.7.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DDP2.0.H.264-TEPES

Narrator: In Washington,

scene of the biggest protest
in the history

of America's
civil rights movement,

the British architect
Sir David Adjaye

has designed a museum
for the ages.

It documents the struggle
by African-Americans

to be "free at last".

This is a very important piece
of democratic theatre,

and the African American
community felt that

they should be represented.

The narrative about their
contribution to what America is

needed to be represented.

I made a conscious decision

that the building
was not going to be a vessel

just to put things in.

It wasn't going to be just
a sort of piece of architecture

that would have something put
in it that had a disconnect.

It felt that the story
was so prescient

that the building had to also
be part of the narrative.

It had to be part of the story.

[rhythmic piano music]

Narrator: Venice.

The British-Ghanaian architect
David Adjaye

has arrived for
the Art Biennale.

He is overseeing
Ghana's pavilion,

its wall made of
the country's soil,

its displays
by Ghanaian artists,

the first time Ghana has
participated in the Biennale.

Tomorrow, Adjaye will greet
the country's first lady

and show her around.

Sir David, as we call him now

after he was knighted
by the Queen,

is increasingly involved
with his African roots.

He's designed
the new National Cathedral

in Ghana's capital, Accra -

the latest in a line
of high-profile projects

around the world.

But though his work in Africa
is important to him -

he was born in Tanzania,
the son of a Ghanaian diplomat -

you get the sense
that he's particularly proud

of the National Museum

of African American History
and Culture in Washington.

Designed for the Smithsonian,

given a place of honour
on the National Mall,

a repository for the artefacts
and letters

and photographs and memories
of a struggle for civil rights

that consumed the United States
for much of the 20th century.

It was, said some, a museum
which was long overdue.

From the Declaration
of Independence, really,

there's a cry for the
representation of this community

to be part of
the national consciousness.

And, you know, at the beginning
of the 21st century,

finally, first under Bush

but made possible through
the Obama administration,

finally this building is here.

Narrator: David Adjaye,
acting as design lead,

came together with
Philip Freelon

and J Max Bond Jr,

both prominent
African American architects

working in the US,
to take on this project.

[soaring orchestral music]

Few architects
face the twin challenges

of designing a building

at the very heart
of the nation's capital

and creating a building

that will mark for all time
the role of African-Americans

in the life of this nation
and their fight to be free.

David: The Mall is a fantastic
construction.

It is this idea of America
placing what it values most

in its monumental core
for the world to see.

It's where anybody
who wants to understand

what America is
really should go.

You see the monuments
to Lincoln, to Jefferson,

the Founding Fathers.

You see
the Washington Memorial Grounds,

where the great tragedies
and monuments are celebrated.

But then you have
the Mall itself

with its double alley of trees,
very Beaux-arts inspired,

with its great museums
aligning it.

And at the end, Congress -

you know,
the power of this thing.

And the White House on the hill
just behind

overlooking the entire thing.

This is a very important piece
of democratic theatre.

And the African American
community felt that

they should be represented.

Their narrative about their
contribution to what America is

needed to be represented.

[soaring orchestral music]

Narrator: Far from being
overawed by the honour

of being given a site
on the National Mall,

it's clear that David Adjaye
understood

the enormity of the task

and very quickly saw
what references

would inform the look and feel
of Washington's newest museum.

- I made a conscious decision

that the building
was not going to be

a vessel just to put things in.

It wasn't going to be just
a sort of piece of architecture

that would have something put
in it that had a disconnect.

It felt that the story
was so prescient

that the building had to also be
part of the narrative.

It had to be part of the story.

I think that the story
that even African-Americans

have sort of, have kind of...

that has faded into
their distant memory

is their incredible roots
to Central and West Africa.

You know, forget the countries,
but Central and West Africa

and kingdoms of Central and West
Africa before colonisation

were incredible places
of shrines

and incredible architecture
and monuments.

I wanted to make something

that would give a clue
to the heritage of these people

from the continent,

but also show their
transformation

and their difference.

So, the building uses
the silhouette

of the shrines of the Yoruba -

for me the greatest craftsmen,

apart from maybe the Chokwe
in Central Africa,

of kind of wood and bronze
and metalsmithing, et cetera.

But it also then integrates
into that

the lessons or the idea
of the American birthing pool.

You know, labour.

They were brought to America
to be the labour force

of creating America.

They were part of
the agriculture,

they built the infrastructure,
they built the architecture.

The White House is built
by black slaves.

Congress is built
by black slaves.

And, you know,
this idea of labour

was very fascinating to me.

So, the skin of the building
is really a manifestation

of all these ideas.

It's really the idea, for me,

something I became
really fascinated in -

that most people think of
the slave trade

and think of cotton picking,

but I wanted people
to understand

also this notion that
the African American community

built the infrastructure.

So, we looked at the
architecture of Charleston

and Louisiana,
these incredible mansions,

and researched which ones
had been built by slaves,

realised that most of them
had been.

When these mansions and these
sort of gentry of the South

who owned the land
and the slaves

didn't have enough money
to buy the production,

the factory-produced
industrial panels of the North -

you know, Boston was where
the cast-iron factories were -

slaves would make them
out of sand-cast,

handmade formwork in the South.

And I became so fascinated
with that

and the connection to
the incredible heritage

of the bronze masters
of West Africa,

that somehow they were now
the iron masters of the South,

creating this incredible,
ornamental ironwork

for these grand houses.

And I felt in a way that

that was wonderful
representation,

almost ascribed in architecture,
in history,

to transfer to the 21st century

and sort of to encode
in the building.

So, the building
really manifests

a piece of ironwork
from a house in Charleston,

where we sort of mapped
with the computer

the DNA of the drawing
of the metalwork

and turned it into
an abstract drawing,

which is then tessellated

and almost like
a Bosch drawing,

sort of flipped and mapped
all over the building.

So really, what you're getting
is kind of DNA of this person

who drew and made this thing

has now been made into
a building

which references also

the monuments of the ancient
kingdoms of West Africa.

So in a way,
I'm sort of trying to describe,

in physical terms,
how the identity of a person

can be also manifested
in built form.

[singing on recording]

Narrator: All around
this building

are the ghosts of those
who fought so hard for equality.

It was here in Washington

that a quarter of a million
people

from all over the country,
black and white,

assembled for a peaceful
demonstration in August 1963,

a demonstration that lives on
in the collective memory,

not only for that famous speech
by Dr Martin Luther King,

but also for its sheer size
and impact.

Man: It was one of
the finest hours,

maybe one of the finest days
in American history.

I looked to my right,

I saw a multitude
of young people.

Young volunteers in
the movement, black and white.

I looked straight ahead
and saw this sea of humanity.

Then I looked to my left.

I saw hundreds of young men,

black and white, up in the trees

to get a better view
of the stage.

And I said to myself,
"This is it."

We're going to march.

We're going to walk together.

We're going to stand together.
We're going to sing together.

We're going to stay together.

We're going to moan together.
We're going to groan together.

And after a while, we'll shout,
"Freedom! Freedom! Freedom now!"

We came to Washington
to put on the American agenda

the problem and issue

of segregation
and racial discrimination.

I remember so well...

..coming up to Capitol Hill
for the first time,

meeting with legislators,
Democrats and Republicans.

Then leaving to walk
with Martin Luther King Jr

and others
to the Lincoln Memorial.

I think this march will go down
as one of the greatest,

if not the greatest
demonstration

for freedom and human dignity

ever held in the United States.

[gospel singing]

Narrator: The 1963 march
on Washington

is commemorated in the museum,

along with seminal events at
places such as Selma, Alabama,

where civil rights leader
John Lewis,

now a long-serving congressman

and one of those behind
the creation of this museum,

attempted to lead a march to
the state capital, Montgomery,

in a battle to secure
the right to vote.

- The march from Selma
to Montgomery...

..is as fresh as the morning dew

in my mind.

We got within hearing distance
of the state troopers.

One of the young men
leading the march with me

said, "Major, give us a moment
to kneel and pray."

And the major said,
"Troopers, advance."

They came toward us,
beating us with nightsticks...

..bull whips...

..tramping us with horses,

releasing the teargas.

I was hit in the head
by a state trooper

with a nightstick.

I thought I was going to die.

I thought I saw death.

The photographs from Selma
on that day

went all over America
and went around the world.

The American people couldn't
stand what they saw

and they demanded
that the president

and members of Congress act.

Narrator: It is the memories
of John Lewis,

his fellow civil rights leaders,

and all African-Americans
who struggle for equality

that will be preserved
in the National Museum

of African American History
and Culture.

As the project gets underway,

the founding director,
Lonnie Bunch,

says what everyone's thinking -

"This building will sing
for all of us."

David Adjaye came to Britain
at the age of nine.

By then, he's lived in Tanzania,
Yemen, Lebanon and Egypt.

He won RIBA bronze medal

for the best design project
produced by a student

graduating
as a Bachelor of Arts,

so he was recognised early on

and it wasn't long
before he formed

an architecture partnership
with classmate William Russell,

and then, at the turn of
the century, went it alone.

Nine years later,
as the recession hit,

his practice almost collapsed.

It's been a hell of
a rollercoaster. [laughs]

Yeah, no, I think learning
very hard in 2008

that architecture
also has to be a form...

You know, when you hire
lots of people

and you make a project,
you make projects,

and then you realise
that actually,

there's a recession globally

and you don't have
any more work!

And that you're gonna go
bankrupt.

I can laugh about it now, but
it was the most horrific thing.

I remember calling my mother
and I was more disappointed,

you know,
talking to my parents then,

'cause I just felt like
I'd let them down.

That they'd educated me,

they'd spent all this money
on me to be who I was,

and I'd told them I wanted to be
somebody in architecture -

they had no idea what it was
and they were like,

"We can't help you, but if
you believe in it, do it."

They supported me financially,
et cetera, and here I was

about to collapse the entire
thing into the ground.

I was so depressed.

But in a way,
it taught me a huge lesson

about the importance
of being conscious

about the entire life-cycle
of the business

that I wanted to get in,

and to also focus on the things
that actually meant...

made sense to me
and meant most to my calling

to do architecture.

So in a way,
it refined my direction.

It let me understand
that I needed to put in tools

that would create sustainability
within what I wanted.

But it also led me to realise
that I need to go for work

that would be critical
to my intellectual pursuit,

but also economically
allow the firm to survive.

So...

you know, sometimes
you have to have failure

before you can understand
where you need to go,

and I did my time.

Narrator: Among the commissions
that saved Adjaye's studio

was an invitation
to join a team of architects

working on the proposed Museum

of African American History
and Culture in Washington.

It required a presentation
to a board

that included
General Colin Powell,

former First Lady Barbara Bush,
and Oprah Winfrey.

I was trembling. [laughs]

Sort of meeting your heroes
and, you know,

canonal figures
to make a presentation

was probably one of the most
traumatic moments -

traumatic and exhilarating
moments - of my career.

But they got it.

They were profound
and their immediate...

You know, it sort of reinforced
to me at that moment,

wow, that this subject, it comes
out of the mind of a person,

but actually, it's shared,
it's a human knowledge.

And somehow, there's
an instinctive understanding

when something makes sense.

And I loved that moment
in that jury space,

when they clapped
when we presented.

It was powerful.

We didn't even know if
we'd won then,

but I was just so enraptured
by that sort of response

from this incredible,
august group of people.

Then we found out
two weeks later that we won.

Yeah. [chuckles]

Narrator: Though David Adjaye
would design private houses

for everyone
from Alexander McQueen

to Ewan McGregor

and be knighted in 2017
for services to architecture,

the Washington museum marks
a point in his life

at which he started refining
the concept of 'making memory'.

In an exhibition
at London's Design Museum,

making memory looms large.

The Mass Extinction
Memorial Observatory -

MEMO for short -

dedicated to the 860 species

of animals, birds,
insects and sea life

that have become extinct

since the dodo died out
in the 17th century.

It's proposed for
a coastal site at Portland.

A planned memorial
to Martin Luther King

and Coretta Scott King
in Boston,

where they studied and met,

with their words engraved
on black slate.

And the controversial
UK Holocaust memorial

proposed for the gardens
to the west

of the Houses of Parliament,

all of a piece
with Adjaye's quote,

"You only make a better future
if you question the past."

So, the National Museum

of African American History
and Culture

fits with David Adjaye's
mission.

He is acutely aware

that architects
make the physical world

and his quest is to take places
like this to another level.

As he says, the monument is
no longer a representation.

It's an experience of time
and place

that is available to everyone.

[staccato piano]

I think that architecture
is there

to give us a dignified frame

and to remind us
of our humanity.

And to remind us of the ability
of art to unify us

and to let us kind of
reach for our better selves.

I really believe
that architecture's role

in creating
these beautiful frames

are not just to do with
tropes of empire.

Of course they are,
but they are to kind of

really talk about
something bigger than that.

And I think that even more,
more than ever,

I think the time
that we live in,

with what I call the sort of
memory loss of history

and the lessons of history
that's happening...

Which is ironic because we have
the greatest tool invented

since the beginning of,
you know, time - the internet -

which should remind us all
of everything.

We are practising the most
extraordinary

erasure of history!

At a time when we have
the greatest amount of knowledge

about the history.

Architecture has to come back
into the physical realm,

not to reinforce stereotypes

but to kind of reinforce
our common humanity,

our ties, our relationships
to each other.

I think that that's
a critical readjustment

of the notion of the city which
is gonna happen globally.

I really believe this.

We became so obsessed with
just building,

just making money,
just building,

just creating value.

And in fact, you know,
it's no irony

that funds started
to see architecture

as a great haven for parking
money so that you would...

Architecture suddenly became
commodified,

rather than becoming an image
of our civilisation.

I think all the good architects
in the world

now are realising that there has
to be resistance to this.

It's fine to be commercial,
but to a certain point.

Our remit as architects
are twofold.

We work to the brief,

but we also have an eye
to history

and we also have an eye to
our humanity,

our common humanity.

[staccato piano]

We are the guardians that fight
for the invention

and the reinvention

and the re-codification
of the public realm.

It's up to architects,
as we identify the cities,

to keep reinventing
what that public realm is,

how it can still give us our
dignity and our common humanity,

and I think the minute
it stops doing that,

we are in trouble,
we are in real trouble.

Narrator: In Washington,
you may wonder

how a museum like this starts.

The idea of a monument
to African-Americans

on a prominent site
in the nation's capital

had been around for a long time,

but somehow,
it never seemed to get built.

And when the moment
finally came,

the agreement to proceed
was only part of the story.

Now it was the turn
of the architect.

I think my work is very much
a kind of reflection

after a deep dive
into a lot of information.

I start not with images -
there are no images in my mind.

I start with a feeling
about the work

and then I dive into
a lot of information.

I spend a lot of time
going through manuscripts,

documents that are, in a way,
my little bit of detective work,

really trying to piece together
and understand

the way in which the work
sort of for he has driven

a certain kind of emotion in me.

I'm trying to kind of make sense

of why this emotion
is the way it is.

And then from that,
I would say a form,

not in the sense of
a literal form, but a form,

a figure of the project
starts to emerge in my head.

And that's when
sketching starts.

Then after the research,
a huge amount of sketching.

And then after that, it stops

and then a huge amount
of testing.

Then my team get involved,

and then there's a kind of
huge amount

of using computational tools
and modelling

to really test and make sense
of ideas.

And then we start making it
into the thing

that becomes a building
in the end.

Narrator: Though there is
something else.

Along the way,
in designing this museum,

and in David Adjaye's
remarkable career generally,

as his ideas on life
and history and commemoration

have been refined,
and come to define him,

one thing has been constant -

the idea of art in architecture.

[piano music ends]

In architecture,
I don't want to be hierarchical,

but it is the first art form.

It is the primary art form.

You know, the idea of
memorialising a place

with an abstraction
which is called architecture,

which has no real
functional idea

except to acknowledge
our presence on the planet

and to talk about
our aspirations

for something greater
than ourselves.

You know, our sense
of being here for a long time.

You know,
I can't say the 'forever' word,

but there's that sense of
"we are here".

It's a very powerful thing

and I think that that's,
for me,

the eternal beauty
of architecture,

that architecture has this
profound ability to go past...

..even the kind of everyday
existence of our lives.

Look at this building.

We're in any building
which is 500 years old.

It's now a hotel.
It didn't start off as a hotel.

And look at how it lives for us
and how we use it

as a reference to understand
our own dignity

and our own humanity.

I think great architecture
at its best

is able to capture something
in its time

and create
an amazing time capsule

that reminds generations
that are coming of our humanity,

of our common humanity

and of our intelligence
and of our beauty.

Narrator: In 2009, David Adjaye
and his fellow architects

working on the Washington Museum

could not have guessed
that its completion

would coincide with a resurgence
of white nationalism.

After all, the nation's
first black president

had only just started
his second term.

In 2013, America marked
the 50th anniversary

of the assassination
of President Kennedy,

whose early attempts to
introduce a Civil Rights Act

were taken up by his successor,
Lyndon Johnson.

This is a sad time
for all people.

We have suffered a loss
that cannot be weighed.

Narrator: In 2015,
President Obama

joined Congressman John Lewis

to commemorate the Selma
to Montgomery march,

which had finally gone ahead
in the spring of 1965

and would help secure
proper voting rights

for African-Americans,

the spirit of those times
captured

in LBJ's historic
"we shall overcome" speech

to the joint houses of Congress.

It is wrong...

..deadly wrong to deny any
of your fellow Americans...

..the right to vote
in this country.

[applause]

There is no Negro problem.

That is no Southern problem.

There is no Northern problem.

There is only
an American problem.

[applause]

What happened in Selma is
part of a far larger movement,

which reaches into every section
and state of America.

It is the effort
of American Negroes

to secure for themselves

the full blessings
of American life.

Their cause
must be our cause too.

Because it's not just Negroes,

but really it's all of us...

..who must overcome

the crippling legacy
of bigotry and injustice.

And we shall overcome.

[applause]

Narrator: But by 2016,

the national mood
was very different.

Adjaye: We had a window
with Obama that we thought,

"Wow, haven't we made
incredible progress?"

And then we see the rise
of the right

all over the world again,
as though we'd forgotten.

Just, for me, tragically,

at a time when the generation
who shed their blood

have started to pass away.

There are very few of them
left to tell us

how horrific these conflicts
can be on our world.

And just as they're going,
we kind of resurge...

almost a tabula rasa,

and that tells me
that it's a continual effort.

We never get past it

and we have to always
ascribe against this forgetting

of the traumas
of extreme thinking.

It's deeply, deeply depressing.

And you know, my father fought

in the Second World War,
you know.

He was part of
the small African contingents

who came to Europe
and North Africa to fight.

And so, you know,
even in Africa, the world war,

that was mostly in Europe,
really touched families.

And I just
could never even imagine that

that was something
that could ever happen again

when I heard him talking
about that as a little boy.

For the first time in my life,
I sort of feel like,

"My God, we're on the precipice
again of absolute horror."

And I just can't abide that.

Narrator: It's against
that background

that the African American Museum
has opened

and, says David Adjaye,

the museum itself
and the story it tells

is the best way to reply to
those who would rewrite history.

- We wanted to not make
a traditional palace.

You know, a sort of portico,
come in, big hall, stair,

and then rooms
that you sort of ride into,

but to turn the building
almost into its own narrative.

So, you come in and unlike
going into a big hall

and then going sideways, you go
down 40 feet into the ground.

And then you descend
another 40 feet into darkness.

And from that darkness,
you are immersed in the history,

a summary of the history

where you meander through
three careful terraces

which really break down, which
are of summary of the narrative.

The agrarian past,
the migration to the cities,

and then the cultural explosion
that affects the world.

And that is the three tiers
of the building that you see.

So, you sort of do that
and at the end you get a moment.

Most people come out
completely fatigued

and exhausted and traumatised.

A lot of people come out weeping

from having been immersed
in the details of this history.

So, we created a special room,
which is a reflecting room,

which is a space with a giant...

It's a 30-foot room
with a waterfall

that descends into a chamber.

I wanted water to be a sort of
element of community.

I mean, water is the baptism,

the middle passages
over the Atlantic.

Water is the great device
used right from the 15th century

right through to the industrial
age to power things.

It is for agriculture,
for barges and movement.

So in a way,
they are part of the way

in which water is used
to mechanise the landscape.

And then water becomes
the litmus of salvation.

It's the spirituality in
the African American churches

where the resistance is built.

Water...the baptism to kind of
wish for a better world

is through water.

So in a way,
this idea of this kind of

large descent of water
which neutralises noise

but allows the body
to meditate on something else,

was an important room to make.

And it's lined, actually,
in a bronze skin

laminated in the glass
to remind you of the origins.

So in a way,
the bronze of the Yoruba

and then the waterfall
the baptism

and hopefully the reflection.

[uplifting piano]

Then after that, you rise up.

You realise that it's almost,
for me,

I hope the people see the
building in that moment

almost like a tree.

It's like you go from the ground
into the sky,

and then you go into the sky

but it's a kind of
dappled light.

It's diaphanous,
you get fantastic vignettes.

But you're in something,

you feel like you're enclosed
in something.

And you rise through to
the other two exhibition spaces,

and at every point you are given
a perch to view something.

There are nine special windows
in the building

which view what I call

the kind of key monumental
sort of frames

from that position.

The Lincoln, as I've said,

Jefferson,
Martin Luther King now,

the Reflecting Pool, Congress,

the National Archive,
the White House

are all framed as you go through
that journey in the upper space.

Until you get to
the uppermost level,

where you get
the most fantastic panorama

over the west-facing landscape,

looking at
the Washington Memorial Grounds,

right up to Arlington.

It's a free
sort of Juliet balcony

to this fantastic view
of Washington,

which nobody else has.

And it's the end of the journey,
as it were.

You get the overview after
you've been through the history,

first in darkness

and then into
this incredible light

and this incredible perspective.

Narrator: In Venice,
David Adjaye pauses

to reflect on a life that
involves almost constant travel.

He's come to the Venice Biennale
from Ghana,

where he's been
for three months,

via one day in London.

He doesn't do holidays much.

Novels are out, replaced by
books by social thinkers

who are formulating ideas
about the world.

His Ghana pavilion,

which proves a hit with visitors
to the Biennale,

reflects his African heritage

and a desire to counter many
people's image of the continent

on which he was born

and which supplied slaves
to America,

their lives now recorded
in Washington's

Museum of African American
History and Culture.

I'm always questioning
why I want to make architecture.

For me, architecture
isn't a commercial act,

it isn't a business.

It's an ability to participate
in history.

It's an ability to participate
in the narratives

that kind of define who we are

and where we are
in the 21st century.

[soft piano]

I'm interested in ascribing
the complexities,

the struggles, the opportunities

that this time has
in architecture.

I'm enduring it. You know,
there were people who said,

"How can you build
such a thing in America?

"It doesn't make sense,
it doesn't fit." You know.

I had it all, I had...
you know, moments I was like,

"Am I doing the right thing?"

But that was my quiet
sort of meditation.

But I was confident
that it had to resonate.

[uplifting piano music]

It's amazing, when you make
a piece of architecture

that then captures
the consciousness of a nation

or a people.

It's very powerful.

And in a way,
it's actually driven me more.

The work that I'm now doing

is driven by the kind of
confidence of that.

That moment when Barack really
opened this building in 2016.

I was there with my mother.

My father had just passed away,
so he missed it.

But I was there with my mother
and I was crying.

We were looking at each other
and I was like,

son of a Ghanaian diplomat

who kind of left
a small kingdom,

a village kingdom in Ghana,

brought his kids to Europe,
educated, and now look -

we're sitting here
looking at this thing.

It was a very, very
moving moment. Very powerful.

[soaring orchestral theme music]

Narrator: Next time...

..locked up and unloved,
the old Commonwealth Institute

in London's fashionable
Kensington

faced an uncertain future.

Opened in 1962
as a permanent showcase

for the countries
of the Commonwealth,

its unusual design
proved costly to maintain -

so costly that in 2004,

the building was closed.

By then, this landmark
on Kensington High Street,

with its unusual roof,
had been listed Grade 2#*.

English Heritage called it
"the second most important

"modern building in London"
after the Royal Festival Hall.

Now it has a new life
as home of the Design Museum,

with the exterior master plan
handled by OMA

and the interior crafted
by one of Britain's

greatest minimalists,
John Pawson.

- You can never please
everybody,

because of course
there were people

who loved the Commonwealth
Institute as it was

so didn't want anything changed.

And then there are people
who realise that by saving it

and retuning it
for the Design Museum

was perhaps a good thing.

Captioned by Ai-Media
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