Emanuel Admassu (‘12 MSAAD, ‘13 AAR) is an Assistant Professor at Columbia GSAPP. He is a founding partner, with Jen Wood, of AD—WO, an art and architecture practice based in New York City, and by
extension, between Melbourne and Addis Ababa. He is also a co-founding board member of the Black Reconstruction Collective.
His art, design, and teaching practices operate at the intersection of
design theory, spatial justice, and contemporary African art. The work
meditates on the international constellation of Afrodiasporic spaces.
Most recently, he has been analyzing the socio-spatial identities of two
urban marketplaces: Kariakoo in Dar es Salaam and Merkato in Addis
Ababa. Admassu has previously taught at RISD Architecture and
Harvard GSD.
AD—WO’s work was featured in the exhibition Reconstructions:
Architecture and Blackness in America at the Museum of Modern
Art. Their installation focuses on the immeasurability of Black spatial
practices in Atlanta and the Atlantic.