Sumayya Vally: the South African architect on how growing up in a township defined her sense of place
Sumayya Vally is a South African architect whose star is in the ascendant. At the age of 30, she became the youngest architect to receive the prestigious annual summer pavilion commission at the Serpentine Gallery in London. A slew of accolades and honoraries followed and she is now widely regarded as a nimble change maker with the ability to encapsulate big ideas in deft, experimental projects the world over. For this week’s episode of Homing In, Sumayya talks to Matt Gibberd about her quest to devise a new design language.
“Today I’m talking to the wonderful Sumayya Vally, founder of the architecture and research practice Counterspace.
“When in 2020 Sumayya designed the Serpentine pavilion, she joined the ranks of luminaries including Zaha Hadid, Peter Zumthor and Frank Gehry. In 2021, Time Magazine named her one of the ‘100 Leaders of the Future’ and, more recently, she was artistic director of the inaugural Islamic Arts Biennale in Saudi Arabia.
“What really shines through in this conversation is Sumayya’s interest in the notion of home as it relates to place. She was born in an Indian township in Pretoria, just after Nelson Mandela was released from prison, and she cites the city of Johannesburg as her biggest inspiration.
“When she arrived in London, she became interested in the gathering spaces where settlers from other countries and communities have established themselves: churches, synagogues, marketplaces, female community centres, black-music venues and so on. ‘Home is not a physical place,’ she says. ‘It’s a sensibility and a feeling.’
“The name ‘Sumayya’ means ‘to rise to the occasion’, and she tells me how she’s an outlier in her family and how her parents made sacrifices to provide her with an education.
“Very occasionally in life, you meet someone who has an inner light that seems to shine more brightly than other people’s. For me, Sumayya has that. She’s incredibly composed, articulate and wise beyond her years and I’m full of admiration for the work she’s doing to bring disparate cultures together.”
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