David Adjaye

Sir David Frank Adjaye OM OBE RA (born 22 September 1966) is a Ghanaian-British architect. He is known for having designed many notable buildings around the world, including the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C. Adjaye was knighted in the 2017 New Year Honours for services to architecture. He is the recipient of the 2021 Royal Gold Medal, making him the first African recipient and one of the youngest recipients.

He was made a member of the Order of Merit in 2022. Adjaye was born in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The son of a Ghanaian diplomat, he lived in Tanzania, Egypt, Yemen, and Lebanon before moving to Britain at the age of nine. Upon graduating with a BA degree in Architecture from London South Bank University in 1990, he won the RIBA Bronze Medal for the best undergraduate design project in the UK. In 1993 he graduated from his master's program at the Royal College of Art.

In 1993, the year of his graduation, Adjaye won the RIBA Bronze Medal Award, a prize offered for RIBA Part 1 projects, normally won by students who have only completed a bachelor's degree. Previously a unit tutor at the Architectural Association, he was also a lecturer at the Royal College of Art. He was knighted in the 2017 New Year Honours for services to architecture, following an OBE in 2007. 

Adjaye is the recipient of the 2021 Royal Gold Medal. Given in recognition of a lifetime's work, the Royal Gold Medal is approved personally by the British monarch and given to a person or group of people who have had a significant influence 'either directly or indirectly on the advancement of architecture.'

Adjaye's early works include many residential projects, including Chris Ofili's house in 1999, Dirty House and Glass House in 2002, and Lorna Simpson's studio home in 2006. He then moved on to larger-scale projects, such as the Idea Store in Whitechapel, UK, and the Nobel Peace Center in Oslo, Norway, in 2005.

The studio's first solo exhibition, David Adjaye: Making Public Buildings, was shown at the Whitechapel Gallery in London in January 2006, with Thames and Hudson publishing the catalog of the same name. This followed their 2005 publication of Adjaye's first book, David Adjaye Houses. Other prominent early works include the Bernie Grant Arts Centre and the Stephen Lawrence Centre in 2007.