A nearly instant icon on Washington D.C’s National Mall, The National Museum of African American History and Culture has been named as the Overall Winner at the Beazley Designs of The Year for 2017. Designed by British-Ghanian architect Sir David Adjaye in collaboration with the Freelon Group and Davis Brody Bond, the Smithsonian Institution museum opened in the fall of 2016, quickly becoming a massively popular destination, welcoming some 3 million guests in its first full year of operation.
With the three distinctive tiers of aluminum now forming a well-established landmark, the museum was described by New York Times architecture critic Michael Kimmelman as “the first really fine major public building of the century to rise in the nation’s capital.”
The National Museum of African American History and Culture was joined as a Beazley award winner by four works from a variety of design disciplines. The winners are: Graphic Design of the Year: ‘Fractured Lands’, New York Times Magazine, Product Design of the Year: AIR-INK , Fashion Design of the Year: Nike Pro Hijab, and Transport Design of the Year: Scewo.
Now in their 10th edition, the Beazley Designs of the Year are presented as an annual exhibition at London, England’s Design Museum. The exhibition brings together over 60 global projects that were nominated across the six categories Architecture, Digital, Fashion, Graphics, Product and Transport – featuring film, virtual reality, audio and objects representing the breadth and variety of this year’s designs. This year’s exhibition will run until February 18.