（再掲）スタイルを持たないスタイル

2012年にDavid Adjayeをブログで取り上げていました。彼の考えに共感を持っていることもあり再掲させていただきます。雑誌TIMEを通して知ることのできた人です。

TIMEの別冊STYLE & DESIGNに新進気鋭の建築家David Adjayeが特集されていました。最初のお目当ては映画『インセプション』にも出ていたマリオン・コティヤールだったわけですが、彼女のお陰でこんな建築家がいるのかと勉強になりました（笑）

アップルのようにブランド力をつけることが今重要なこととされている感じですが、David Adjayeさんの特徴は特徴がないことだそうです。もちろん、このようなスタイルは建築界でも珍しいようです。

But the most remarkable aspect of David Adjaye’s enormous success is that his work is not easily identified as David Adjaye’s. In an era when branding is key, when the quickest route to recognition is through being easily recognized, Adjaye’s buildings are not. He has no trademark like Frank Gehry’s giddying swerves or Renzo Piano’s elegant lightplay. Adjaye’s creations have few family likenesses.

しかし、David Adjayeの大きな成功の一番際立った側面はDavid Adjayeというものが容易には見いだせないことなのだ。ブランド化することが重要になっている時代に、容易に判別できるようにすることが手っ取り早く認知される時代に、Adjayeの建築はそうではないのだ。彼にはトレードマークといえるものがない。フランク・ゲーリーにはめまいがするほどの脱線があり、レンゾ・ピアノには優美な遊びがあるのと対照的だ。Adjayeの作品にはグループ化できるような類似点がほとんどない。



STYLE & DESIGN FALL 2012
Sign of The Times
David Adjaye resists adopting a trademark style. That hasn't stopped him from becoming one of the biggest brands in architecture
By BELINDA LUSCOMBE | @youseless | September 11, 2012

個人のsignatureを前面に出すのではなく、iconic, historic or monumentalを求めないあり方が彼の特徴のようです。何もアップル的なものをどんな業種にも求めればいいわけではないようですね。

“I don’t think there is one way of typically describing his work,” says British artist Chris Ofili, with whom Adjaye often collaborates. “His is a very fertile breeding ground.”

“Among my generation, the idea of signature seems a bit outdated,” says Adjaye. (He is based mainly in London, but Time interviewed him in his New York City office on the outskirts of Chinatown.) For Adjaye, the notion of an architectural movement that plants its avatars all over the globe is, just like colonialism, over. “We want to take a different position and try styles that are responsive to different parts of the world,” he says.

Adjaye is an architect who does not seek to be iconic, historic or monumental, yet those are the exact qualities of his biggest client: the Smithsonian Institution. He is the chief design force behind the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC), currently under construction in the last vacant spot on the National Mall next to the Washington Monument. As probably the most significant public American edifice of the decade, it’s a building that calls out for a robust design vision.



このようなスタイルは、タンザニアに生まれて、13歳からロンドンで暮らした経験が影響を与えているのかもしれません。

But few would argue that Adjaye isn’t the right man for the job. Born in Tanzania, one of four sons of a Ghanaian diplomat and a stay-at-home mother, Adjaye spent his childhood crisscrossing continents and cultures before landing in London at the age of 13. “What’s great about having an international education is that you learn to negotiate difference and wildly varying opinions,” says Adjaye, who was in the midst of arguments among Sikhs, Christians, Muslims, animists and atheists from a very young age. “You realize early on that negotiation is part of life.”

The young Adjaye also encountered many types of buildingsfrom slum dwellings to huge mosques, from regimented colonial cities and imposing embassies to more organically aggregated African metropolisesduring his father’s postings in Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and Uganda. It gave him an appreciation for different materials, forms and human-edifice interactions. “I don’t make references from my childhood in a conscious way,” he says. “But I think the places I saw as a young child profoundly affect my sense of atmosphere, light, geography and people. Those things are hardwired into my system.”

Adjaye, long comfortable in disparate cultures, is also fluent in multiple design languages. He got his most important formal architectural training at London’s interdisciplinary Royal College of Art, where he rubbed shoulders with car designers, photographers and painters as well as other architects.


“What’s great about having an international education is that you learn to negotiate difference and wildly varying opinions”（国際的な教育で素晴らしいところは、様々な、そして大きく違う意見と折り合いをつけていくことを学べることです）とか“You realize early on that negotiation is part of life.”（折り合いをつけていくことが人生の一部だと早くから気づくのです）と語っているところが印象的です。我々日本人にとってもますます必要になっていくスキルですよね。



Adjayeさんにとっては、個人のスタイルを完成していくことを目指さないことは、無責任な態度ではなく、その反対で社会と深くかかわるためであると言っています。“For me, the business of being an architect is not about perfecting one’s style but about a very profound engagement with society.”（私にとって、建築家であるという本分は、自分のスタイルを完成することではなくて、社会と深くかかわることなのです）という言葉は力強いです。


While it’s too simplistic to say Adjaye’s designs are African, there’s something southern hemispheric about his eclectic use of materials, decoration and structure. It’s less perfect and more resourcefulmore particular to the humans who will use it and adapt itthan much Western architecture. Adjaye’s style may be slippery, but his approach is not. “For me, the business of being an architect is not about perfecting one’s style,” he says, “but about a very profound engagement with society.”

For his sometime collaborator, the Danish-Icelandic sculptor Olafur Eliasson, the trademark of Adjaye’s work is that it transcends trademarks. “David managed to develop a signature which is not just about style,” he says. “Human nature is his inspiration.”


Appleのようなブランド確立型がいいのか、Adjayeさんのようなスタイルにしばられないやり方がいいのか、これは一般論として語るのは無意味かもしれませんね。