“It’s a building with many narratives – relating to the context, the history and the programme. It’s certainly a marriage of form with content. This narrative is articulated immediately by the silhouette – borrowing from the form of a Yoruba sculpture – while also resonating with the angle of the Washington Monument.

"Several other things absolutely came to mind in thinking through what this building should be and how it should work with the programme that we were given. How do you add to such a fantastic masterplan, one of the most significant masterplans in the world – this incredible monumental core to the capital city of the most powerful country in the world? How do you understand its intrinsic nature, which is the idea of the pastoral and the ordered landscape? How do you make an end to the ordered landscape and begin the pastoral, which is the National Mall proper, and then open onto the Washington Monument grounds?

“In a way, I always conceived of this building as a kind of turning point – a knuckle, a joint – which articulates the two things, neither one nor the other, but bridging between the two. This can be understood as a metaphor for the less tangible bridge between cultures – ensuring that the African American story becomes a universal story. So from the sensitivity of the masterplan to the cultural discourse, I wanted to ensure that the building ends the mall properly and begins the monument.

“Architecturally, this project continues the modernist discourse of Gordon Bunshaft’s Hirshhorn Museum and I. M. Pei’s East Building but, in its superstructure, the National Museum of African American History and Culture refers to a sculpture by the 20th century Yoruba sculptor Olowe of Ise.

“The crown-like form of the corona ascends in three stages, consisting of three inverted pyramids, giving a sense of uplift. It is a column capitol, it has a pyramid reference, and despite the passage of time, it represents the aesthetic world of the Africans brought to America as slaves.”