 | This biographical article is written like a résumé .(April 2023) |
Professor Sumayya Vally (born 1990) is a Muslim South African architect, and the founder and principal of the architecture and research firm, Counterspace. [1] It is based between Johannesburg, South Africa, and London, United Kingdom. [2]
Sumayya Vally was born in February 1990 in Pretoria, South Africa, in the township of Laudium. She often cites the city of Johannesburg as her biggest source of inspiration, and it is a recurring theme in her works [1]
Vally completed her undergraduate studies in Architecture at the University of Pretoria, and went on to complete her master's degree at the University of the Witwatersrand in 2014.
In 2014, Sumayya Vally was admitted to the position of assistant curator and film producer for the South African Pavilion at La Biennale di Venezia. [3] Between 2015 and 2020, she led the University of Johannesburg's Unit 12, An African Almanac, at the Graduate School of Architecture. [3] The unit was founded by Professor Lesley Lokko, with the intent to create a curriculum for the African continent. [4]
Alongside her teaching career, Sumayya Vally co-founded the experimental architecture and research firm, Counterspace in 2015. [3]
In 2020, the firm was appointed to design the 20th Serpentine Pavilion, making Sumayya the youngest architect to be commissioned for this acclaimed annual temporary structure. [5] Her conception of the Serpentine Pavilion, erected in 2021, is a response to the historical erasure and scarcity of informal community spaces across the city of London, and pays homage to existing and erased places that have held communities over time and continue to do so. [6] [7] [8]
Vally was included in the Time 100 Next list in 2021, which highlights 100 emerging leaders who are shaping the future. [9] She was the only architect to make the list that year. [10] [11]
She was Pelli Distinguished Visiting professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, a lecture series that brings internationally recognized architects together to serve as visiting lecturers each semester [12]
In 2023, Vally artistically directed and co-curated the inaugural Islamic Arts Biennale in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. [13] The event brings together many contemporary artists from across the world alongside rare artefacts, drawn together through the themes of Qiblah (direction) and Hijra (migration). [14] That same year, she was appointed Honorary Professor of Practice at University College London’s The Bartlett School of Architecture. [15] During her tenure, she will make her contribution to the Professional Practice Stream across The Bartlett School of Architecture and its Architecture MSci programme. [15]
In 2021, Sumayya Vally designed the 20th Serpentine Pavilion, making her the youngest architect to do so in the commission's history. [16] The forms in the Pavilion are a result of abstracting, superimposing and splicing elements from architectures that vary in scales of intimacy, translating the shapes of London into the Pavilion structure in Kensington Gardens. Where these forms meet, they create a new place for gathering in the Pavilion [17]
The Pavilion is built of reclaimed steel, cork and timber covered with micro-cement. The varying textures, hues of pink and brown are drawn directly from the architecture of London and reference changes in quality of light [18]
With this commission, Vally set out to create a representation of her ethos and practice by folding other voices into the pavilion. [19] The Pavilion’s design is based on past and present places of meeting, organising and belonging across several London neighbourhoods significant to diasporic and cross-cultural communities, including Brixton, Hoxton, Tower Hamlets, Edgware Road, Barking and Dagenham and Peckham, among others. Responding to the historical erasure and scarcity of informal community spaces across the city, the Pavilion references and pays homage to existing and erased places that have held communities over time and continue to do so today. Among them are: some of the first mosques built in the city, such as Fazl Mosque and East London Mosque, cooperative bookshops including Centerprise, Hackney; entertainment and cultural sites including The Four Aces Club on Dalston Lane, The Mangrove restaurant and the Notting Hill Carnival. [20]
These places of gathering that inspired the design of the pavilion, were in turn incorporated by housing a fragment of the Serpentine Pavilion, taking the structure back out into the city. For the first time in the history of the Serpentine Pavilion commission, four fragments were placed in partner organisations. They are located in New Beacon Books in Finsbury Park, one of the first Black publishers and booksellers in the UK; a multi-purpose venue and community hub The Tabernacle in Notting Hill; arts centre the Albany in Deptford, and the new Becontree Forever Arts and Culture Hub at Valence Library in Barking and Dagenham, which was established to commemorate the centenary of the UK’s largest council housing estate.
The Fragments support the everyday operations of these organisations while enabling and honouring gatherings of local communities that they have supported for years. A gesture of decentralising architecture to include a multitude of voices, the Fragments extend out into the city the principles on which the Pavilion was designed. [21]
An off-shoot of the 2021 Serpentine Pavilion, Support Structures for Support Structures is a fellowship programme initiated by the Serpentine in collaboration with Sumayya Vally and Serpentine’s Civic Projects programme. [22] It was established to support artists working at the intersection of art, spatial politics and community practice.
Vally artistically directed the inaugural Islamic Arts Biennale in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia which ran from January through May 2023. [23] In her role as Artistic Director, Vally was responsible for the development of the biennale's theme, concept, narrative, atmosphere, experience and theme identity, curation of contemporary commissions, and the direction and narrative of the spaces. [24]
The biennale re-imagined Jeddah's Western Hajj Terminal at King Abdulaziz Airport, designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. It presented more than forty contemporary works and over fifteen never-before-exhibited works, in addition to 280 artefacts, delivered by the Diriyah Biennale Foundation through a unique multi-sensorial experience. [25]
In an interview with Arch Daily, Vally said of the Islamic Arts Biennale: "Since my practice is so centered and focused on finding design and aesthetic form and artistic expression for our identities, I really believe that it was very important to undertake a project like this, to claim, reclaim, configure, and reconfigure what this title is for the present and the future. I see it as a decolonial project, and I was really excited to be able to define it from these perspectives and voices. [26] "
Peter Zumthor is a Swiss architect whose work is frequently described as uncompromising and minimalist. Though managing a relatively small firm, he is the winner of the 2009 Pritzker Prize and 2013 RIBA Royal Gold Medal.
The Serpentine Galleries are two contemporary art galleries in Kensington Gardens, Westminster, Greater London. Recently rebranded to just Serpentine, the organisation is split across Serpentine South, previously known as the Serpentine Gallery, and Serpentine North, previously known as the Sackler Gallery. The gallery spaces are within five minutes' walk of each other, linked by the bridge over the Serpentine Lake from which the galleries get their names. Their exhibitions, architecture, education and public programmes attract up to 1.2 million visitors a year. Admission to both galleries is free. The CEO is Bettina Korek, and the artistic director Hans Ulrich Obrist.
Venice Biennale of Architecture is an international exhibition of architecture from nations around the world, held in Venice, Italy, every other year. It was held on even years until 2018, but 2020 was postponed to 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic shifting the calendar to uneven years. It is the architecture section under the overall Venice Biennale and was officially established in 1980, even though architecture had been a part of the Venice Art Biennale since 1968.
Sir David Frank Adjaye 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 appointed to the Order of Merit in 2022.
Vicky Richardson is a writer, curator and consultant specialising in architecture and design. In 2014 she was nominated for Debrett's 500, as one of the 20 most influential people in British architecture; in 2015 she was named a 'Woman of the Year', and received an Honorary Fellowship from the Royal Institute of British Architects.
Junya Ishigami is a Japanese architect.
François Roche is a French architect. Roche is the co-founder and director of R&Sie(n) Architects and the research architectural firm, New Territories/M4.
Neri Oxman is an American–Israeli designer and professor known for art and architecture that combines design, biology, computing, and materials engineering. She coined the phrase "material ecology" to define her work.
Alison Brooks, is a Canadian-British architect. She is the founder and creative director of Alison Brooks Architects, based in London. Her awards include the RIBA Stirling Prize, Manser Medal, Stephen Lawrence Prize, and RIBA House of the Year.
Elin Pernilla Ohrstedt is a London-based Swedish architect.
Frida Escobedo is a Mexican architect. She specifically designs and restores urban spaces: housing, community centers, art venues, and hotels. When creating, Escobedo illustrates her works within a general theme of time, not in a historical context but rather in a social context. She founded her own architectural and Design Studio in 2006 which is located in Mexico City. Escobedo is known for creating temporary and interactive works which can accommodate multiple intended purposes.
The Korean pavilion houses South Korea's national representation during the Venice Biennale arts festivals.
Ghana Freedom was a Ghanaian art exhibition at the 2019 Venice Biennale, an international contemporary art biennial in which countries represent themselves through self-organizing national pavilions. The country's debut pavilion, also known as the Ghana pavilion, was highly anticipated and named a highlight of the overall Biennale by multiple journalists. The six participating artists—Felicia Abban, John Akomfrah, El Anatsui, Selasi Awusi Sosu, Ibrahim Mahama, and Lynette Yiadom-Boakye—represented a range of artist age, gender, locations, and prestige, selected by curator Nana Oforiatta Ayim. The show paired young and old artists across sculpture, filmmaking, and portraiture, and emphasized common threads across postcolonial Ghanaian culture in both its current inhabitants and the diaspora. Almost all of the art was commissioned specifically for the pavilion. Architect David Adjaye designed the pavilion with rusty red walls of imported soil to reflect the cylindrical, earthen dwellings of the Gurunsi within the Biennale's Arsenale exhibition space. The project was supported by the Ghana Ministry of Tourism and advised by former Biennale curator Okwui Enwezor. After the show's run, May–November 2019, works from the exhibition were set to display in Accra, Ghana's capital.
The year 2021 in architecture involved some significant architectural events and new buildings.
The OBEL AWARD is a global award presented annually to honour "recent and outstanding architectural contributions to human development all over the world."
V. Mitch McEwen is an American architect and urban planner, cultural activist, and Assistant Professor at the Princeton University School of Architecture. She is co-founder of Atelier Office, a design and cultural practice working within the fields of urbanism, technology, and the arts. McEwen is a co-founder and member of the Black Reconstruction Collective and a board member of the Van Alen Institute in New York. She was given the 2010 New York State Council on the Arts Independent Projects Award for Architecture, Planning and Design.
The World Around is a global design conference and media organisation that publishes video presentations and short documentary films under the slogan "Architecture's Now, Near, and Next" covering contemporary ideas and projects in architecture and design. The organisation is a 501c3 registered public charity in the United States, and seeks to "make the best new ideas in architecture accessible to all." The platform has a particular focus on climate change and social justice issues, and hosts the Young Climate Prize, a mentoring scheme for climate change-focused designers between the ages of 13 and 25.
Gayane Olegovna Umerova is an art critic, public figure of culture and art of Uzbekistan, and art curator.
Mac Collins is a British artist and designer.
Lina Ghotmeh is an architect and leads her own practice Lina Ghotmeh Architecture based in Paris, France. Born in Beirut, she completed her education at the American University in Beirut.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)