In some of his first public comments after being accused of sexual misconduct in 2023, David Adjaye lambasted the Financial Times story that detailed the allegations, calling it “deeply unfair”. Adding, “There was just an interest in just destroying me, and I got caught in a sort of version of the #MeToo slam.”
As reported by the architecture and design magazine Dezeen, Adjaye spoke out in an interview with architecture critic Tim Abrahams for the podcast Superhumanism. “The article that the FT wrote really destabilized a lot of people’s confidence in me,” he said. “And for me, it was deeply unfair, but I get how news cycles work and I get how stories work. And there wasn’t an interest in hearing my side of the story.”
As Dezeen describes, “Adjaye did not explain why he thought the reporting was unfair. At the time, numerous publications reached out to Adjaye for comment, including Dezeen, but did not receive a reply beyond a statement he issued to the FT in response to its investigation.”
ARTnews was among the many publications that reported on the allegations against Adjaye, which included claims from three women who worked with him related to sexual harassment and assault. In the wake of the story, several institutions cut ties with Adjaye, the most high-profile being the Studio Museum in Harlem, which just opened in its new home designed by Adjaye Associates.
In an essay published yesterday by Art in America, Kate Wagner considers the recent opening of that and other Adjaye-designed buildings, writing, “That #MeToo was the closest thing many institutions got to a reckoning with incipient and rampant sexual abuse and harassment was both, in the moment, a triumph, and in the now, almost 10 years later, an abject failure.”
In his podcast interview, Adjaye said, “What can I do? You can’t fight those kinds of social waves. All you can do is go underwater. Wait, let the wave go over, and hope there’s something when you come up.”
