The Africa Institute has announced the cancellation of a sprawling David Adjaye–designed campus that was to have occupied downtown Sharjah. The news comes in the wake of allegations, first published in the Financial Times, that the noted British Ghanaian architect had sexually harassed or assaulted three female employees.
“The Africa Institute is deeply troubled by the recently reported allegations regarding David Adjaye, and we have made the decision to cancel the building project with Adjaye Associates,” said Africa Institute president Hoor Al Qasimi in a statement.
The Africa Institute, which is devoted to the study and documentation of Africa and its diaspora, frequently mounts shows featuring African artists at venues including London’s Serpentine Galleries and the Sharjah Art Foundation. The roughly 343,000-square-foot campus was to have incorporated the institute’s current home, the Africa Hall, within five structures of up to seven stories each, made of reddish concrete.
“Our decision will not impact our robust research and educational programming at The Institute’s current facilities,” noted Al Qasimi. “The Africa Institute remains as committed as ever to our fellows, faculty, and staff, and to our mission of training a new generation of critical thinkers in African and African diaspora studies, serving as a model of excellence in research, teaching, and documentation.”
On the allegations becoming public, Adjaye relinquished his role as architectural adviser to the mayor of London, and halted work on the British Holocaust Memorial. He also stepped back from the African Futures Institute, a postgraduate architecture school founded by Lesley Lokko, with which he had long been affiliated. Thus far, institutions including the Studio Museum in Harlem, whose new home he had been slated to design, and the Multnomah County Library in Gresham, Oregon, whose forthcoming structure he was working on, ended their relationships with his firm, Adjaye Associates. As well, deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum in Lincoln, Massachusetts indefinitely suspended the presentation of one of his large-scale works.
Adjaye has vigorously denied the allegations against him.
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