David Adjaye
Founder and principal at Adjaye Associates
Sir David Adjaye was a global architectural superstar well before he planted his first Manhattan skyscraper.
The Tanzania-born, Britain-raised architect founded his own practice in 2000 and has since opened studio offices in Accra, London and New York. His monumental design for the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History in Washington, D.C., won a slew of awards, including the 2017 Beazley Design of the Year nod.
That success brought opportunities worldwide, including a blocky, 17,000-square-foot, mixed-use development in Harlem that housed the Sugar Hill Children’s Museum and an early childhood center. Adjaye followed that striking project by designing an 800-foot condo tower on 130 William Street with the Lightstone Group that the press compared to an “alien spaceship,” although not an unwelcome one. Construction at the 66-story high-rise wrapped last summer and the tower’s 242 condos have nearly sold out, marking a resurgence for the Financial District.
Adjaye’s most daring design would have been a supertall skyscraper in West Chelsea that would become the second-tallest in the city. Known as Affirmation Tower, the Don Peebles-proposed structure would rise 1,663 feet in five cantilevered tiers that look upside down. The project has dozens of design touches that are tributes to Black culture, and its tenants are expected to be mostly people of color and women-
owned companies.
“We’re trying to turn the industry upside down, and the building reflects that,” Peebles told Commercial Observer in March 2022.
But the project hit an unexpected roadblock the month before when its request for proposals was pulled because Gov. Kathy Hochul wanted to re-evaluate the long-term plans for the site amid pressure from activists for more affordable housing. The tower is still awaiting a green light.
Adjaye has faced delays before. A long-anticipated Studio Museum in Harlem at 124 West 125th Street is four years behind schedule due to the pandemic and should be enclosed by June. And a 191,000-square-foot charter school in the Bronx’s Port Morris that Adjaye converted from a former ice factory drew praise from critics but was riven with difficulties.
