Ghanaian-British David Adjaye was slated to build The Studio Museum in Harlem’s new home in Manhattan. On Thursday, the museum announced that it had taken the seismic step of parting ways with him. The same goes for a library in Portland, a park in Lincoln, and cultural institutions in Princeton and Liverpool. They all expressed serious concerns regarding the allegations of sexual harassment and misconduct against Adjaye that surfaced this week.
On Tuesday, The Financial Times reported that three unnamed women, who had accused Adjaye, 56, “and his firm of different forms of exploitation — from alleged sexual assault and sexual harassment by him to a toxic work culture — that have gone unchecked for years.”
Adjaye denies the allegations.
“I absolutely reject any claims of sexual misconduct, abuse or criminal wrongdoing,” Adjaye said in a statement released Tuesday. “These allegations are untrue, distressing for me and my family and run counter to everything I stand for.”
He added that he was “ashamed to say that I entered into relationships which though entirely consensual, blurred the boundaries between my professional and personal lives.” He said he “will be immediately seeking professional help in order to learn from these mistakes to ensure that they never happen again.”
Strict policies against executives dating subordinates are standard practice in most industries. In 2016, the former president of Lincoln Center, Jed Bernstein, was forced to resign because of his relationship with a lower staffer.
The “starchitect” Adjaye, who has offices in London, New York and Accra, Ghana, and was knighted by Queen Elizabeth in 2017, has given a number of roles in the wake of the allegations, such as being an architectural adviser to the mayor of London, helping with a major Chicago housing project, and being part of the team working on a British Holocaust memorial next to the Palace of Westminster.
In his statement, Adjaye said that he did not want the allegations to “become a distraction.”
