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Alfred Nobel in Oslo: architecture for peace
David Adjaye meets Alfred Nobel in Oslo: architecture for peace.
Text © Hugh Pearman. Photos © Tim Soar (www.soargallery.co.uk). First published in The Sunday Times, London, on 24 July 2005 as "Chamber of secrets".
continue reading: http://www.hughpearman.com/articles5/adjaye.html
David Adjaye website: www.adjaye.com
Nobel Peace Centre: www.nobelpeacecenter.org
Tim Soar, photographer: www.soargallery.co.uk
Text © Hugh Pearman. Photos © Tim Soar (www.soargallery.co.uk). First published in The Sunday Times, London, on 24 July 2005 as "Chamber of secrets".
David Adjaye is a bundle of charm and good humour and ambition who has long been tipped for the top as one of the new breed of British architects. The fact that he has Ghanaian diplomat parents and started his career designing homes for his artist chums such as Chris Ofili, Jake Chapman and Noble and Webster, gives him a sheen of glamour. And the fact that another client of his - media pundit Janet Street-Porter - fell out with him noisily over her house somehow only adds to the mystique. As does the fact that a large proportion of his contemporary rivals are insanely jealous of him. What's he all about?
The £14.5m Nobel Peace Centre in Norway's capital, Oslo, has the highest of ideals - to act as a permanent museum of the Nobel Peace Prize and the whole idea of individuals striving to make peace in the world. It sounds far too worthy to make much of a public attraction. And this is probably why Adjaye won the job. Because Adjaye, the great showman, can make desirable, must-see places out of anything. In this case the anything was Oslo's former Vestbanen railway station, which despite being in a run-down wharfside bit of town happens to be pretty much dead central on the map of the city, right next to City Hall.
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Adjaye has acted as a kind of circus ringmaster, cracking his magic whip, nurturing the illusion of being in a world apart. To compare the Nobel Peace Centre with circus, or theatre, might seem derogatory, but not so. You are not in an old station in the Nobel Peace Centre in Oslo. Fleetingly, you are somewhere magical.
continue reading: http://www.hughpearman.com/articles5/adjaye.html
David Adjaye website: www.adjaye.com
Nobel Peace Centre: www.nobelpeacecenter.org
Tim Soar, photographer: www.soargallery.co.uk
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