CHICAGO, IL.- The Art Institute announces the installation of a thought provoking mid-career survey of work by critically acclaimed architect David Adjaye, opening September 19, 2015, and running until January 3, 2016, in the only North American venue for this globally focused exhibition. Making Place: The Architecture of David Adjaye explores the architect’s transformation of complex ideas into approachable and innovative structures that respond to local and global systems of culture, economics, and technology. Born in Tanzania in 1966, and raised in Ghana, the Middle East, and England, Adjaye works from offices in London, New York, Berlin, and Accra. With projects worldwide, his practice defies cultural categories and geopolitical borders.

Exhibition co-curator, and Art Institute John H. Bryan Chair and Curator of Architecture and Design Zoë Ryan gives context to the exhibition’s vision: “This isn’t about sealing David’s career with a retrospective exhibition, but rather highlighting a critical moment to consider the possibilities of where David’s practice is headed. My hope is that the exhibition will promote a much richer understanding of an architect committed to creating projects of social and cultural significance and meaning.”

Rather than advance a signature architectural style, Adjaye’s structures address local concerns and conditions through an understanding of historical context and a flexible application of global modernism. Often set in cities struggling with diversity and difference, his public buildings provide spaces to foster connections and explore how neighborhoods evolve and how new communities emerge. Adjaye challenges conventions—drawing references from beyond the Western canon—to better contextualize his projects and reflect the diverse urban identities and multicultural experiences that shape them. These ideas are expressed in important recent projects, such as the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) in Washington, DC, a building that faces a complex history head on, bringing together references from across Africa and America in a visually and physically evocative design.

With the generous corporate sponsorship of Allstate Insurance Company, the exhibition—comprising furniture, housing, public buildings, and master plans—fills the first-floor Abbott Galleries and the second-floor Architecture and Design galleries in the Art Institute’s Modern Wing with drawings, sketches, models, and building mock-ups. A specially commissioned film featuring Adjaye’s collaborators, an international roster of influential art world figures, brings his projects alive and makes clear the important role that Adjaye plays in contemporary architecture today. In a special collaboration with the Art Institute, David Adjaye will also provide personal commentary on select works of African Art from the permanent collection, shared with visitors through new object labels that reflect his interests and inspirations.

Making Place: The Architecture of David Adjaye is accompanied by a richly illustrated catalogue with in-depth essays by David Adjaye, Zoë Ryan, Okwui Enwezor, Peter Allison, Andrea Phillips, and Mabel O. Wilson. Titled David Adjaye: Form, Heft, Material, and underwritten through the generosity of Nancy Carrington Crown and A. Steven Crown, the catalog is published by the Art Institute and Haus der Kunst and distributed worldwide by Yale University Press.