Wallpaper - 07.2019

WRITER: CAROLINE ROUX

Photography: ©Rolex/Thomas Chéné

Mariam Kamara spent six years as a software

developer in the US before deciding to

study architecture, but she already has an

impressive CV that includes housing and

public buildings in her home country, Niger,

and a mission to develop a contemporary

architecture that responds to her region’s

customs, culture and climate. Currently

helping her in that mission is David Adjaye,

who is working with her as part of Rolex’s

Mentor & Protégé Arts Initiative.

Adjaye began mentoring Kamara in May

last year while she was working on the design

of a cultural centre in her home town of

Niamey. Tanzanian-born Adjaye is doing other

work in West Africa (he’s currently building

Ghana’s National Cathedral in Accra) and says

he felt an immediate affinity with Kamara’s

practice. ‘She works to her own agenda and

principles, and that’s admirable,’ he says.

One of their first research trips was to

Mexico City. ‘It’s a place teeming with

diversity and experimentation in architecture,’

says Adjaye. The work of Luis Barragán stood

out, in particular. ‘From the outside, the

buildings are a cube with no apertures, then

you find a whole world inside,’ says Kamara

of visits to Barragán’s home and the convent

he built in Tlalpan. ‘He was influenced by the

architecture of North Africa. As Niger is in the

desert, we’ve a lot more in common with

North Africa than tropical Africa.’

In January, Adjaye and Kamara visited

Niger to complete the research for the

Niamey centre. Kamara was keen to solicit

CENTRE

STAGE

This year, a mentor in Rolex’s

prestigious protégé programme

puts West Africa in the spotlight

local opinion. ‘I like to talk to the users first,’

she says. It was the high-school students who

most impressed. ‘They’re all on social media,

but they talked more about books. They can’t

afford a plane ticket to London or Paris, but

they’re prepared to go there in other ways.’

The result of Kamara and Adjaye’s Rolex

Mentor & Protégé collaboration on the

Niamey centre will be revealed in London

in November. rolexmentorprotege.com;

ateliermasomi.com; adjaye.com

LEFT, DAVID ADJAYE

AND MARIAM KAMARA

PHOTOGRAPHED IN

DANDAJI, NIGER, IN

JANUARY 2019, ON THE

SITE OF AN EARLIER

PROJECT BY KAMARA,

A REGIONAL MARKET

BELOW, KAMARA’S

CONVERSION OF A

RUNDOWN MOSQUE

INTO A LIBRARY AND

COMMUNITY CENTRE

∑

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