The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) has announced that the Tanzanian-born British architect of Ghanaian descent, Sir David Adjaye, will receive the 2021 royal gold medal, one of the world’s highest accolades for architecture. It marks the first time in the 173-year history of the medal that it has been given to a black architect.

The announcement comes as the institute is examining its own role in Britain’s colonial past and struggling to address the continued lack of black representation in architecture.

“It’s incredibly humbling and a great honour to have my peers recognise the work I have developed with my team and its contribution to the field over the past 25 years,” said Adjaye on hearing the news. “Architecture for me has always been about the creation of beauty to edify all peoples around the world equally and to contribute to the evolution of the craft.”

In the last 25years, Sir David Adjaye’s work, ranging from private houses to major international museums, have always reflected his cosmopolitan worldview, taking inspiration from a broad range of cultures and traditions he has been a part of as the son of a diplomat travelling all over the world.

“His work is local and specific, and at the same time global and inclusive,” said the RIBA president, Alan Jones. “Blending history, art and science he creates highly crafted and engaging environments that balance contrasting themes and inspire us all.”

Sir Adjaye trained at Southbank University and the Royal College of Art, establishing his first practice with William Russell in 1994, before setting up Adjaye Associates in 2000. Known for the highly celebrated Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture completed in 2016 in Washington DC, some of his other completed projects include Ruby City, an art centre in San Antonio, Texas completed in 2019; The Alara Concept Store in Lagos, Nigeria completed in 2016 2016; and, the Suger Hill Mixed-Use Development (consisting of housing, museum, community facilities, and offices) in Harlem, New York completed in 2015.

Although this latter project, along with the Idea Store libraries in Tower Hamlets in 2005 has been heavily criticised as being a major fail, it is clear that his works, both past and ongoing, including the new National Cathedral for Ghana in Accra, are good enough for RIBA. “Adjaye’s work is contradictory and yet coherent, contrasting and courageous, setting up and balancing elegance and grit, weightlessness and weight, dark and light,” reads an excerpt from the gold medal citation.