It’s hard to think of another phrase that so well sums up the modesty and impact caused by the newest winner of the Pritzker Prize of Architecture, whose work gained notoriety precisely for involving the inhabitants of his village in the construction of works that combine ethical commitment, environmental efficiency, and aesthetic quality.
For his life story, born in West Africa and educated in Europe and for his professional work, Francis Kéré stands out because he shows that there is hope and that architecture can be universal and democratic. Get to know 15 curiosities and facts about the Burkinabe architect, below.
1. Born in the village of Gando, Burkina Faso, in 1965, Diébédo Francis Kéré is the eldest son of his village chief. The village had no access to public water or electricity, and the literacy rate was below the national average of 25%.
2. Francis was the first of his community to attend school. As there were no educational facilities in the area, at age seven he went to live with his uncle in the nearest town. In 1985, he moved to Berlin on a carpentry scholarship. In the German capital, he learned to make roofs and furniture while attending evening classes.
3. Ten years later, in 1995, he received another scholarship, this time to study architecture at the Technische Universität Berlin, one of Europe’s most prestigious educational centers. He got his degree in 2004.
4. In 1998, with the help of colleagues from college, he founded the association Schulbausteine für Gando e.V. (now Kéré Foundation e.V.), a non-profit organization dedicated to building projects in the village of Gando. In 2005, he founded his office Kéré Architecture, which currently has branches in Germany and Burkina Faso.
5. He built his first building, Gando Primary School, when he was still in college, in 2001. The project was recognized in 2004 with the prestigious Aga Khan Award, for works built in countries with a significant Muslim presence.
6. His first project uses clay as the main building element. To convince people in his community, who were suspicious of the choice, that this was a reliable and durable material, Francis resorted to small scale models.
“We made a brick and put it in a bucket of water, where it stayed for five days. After that period, we took it out and the block was still solid. That’s convincing.” — Diébédo Francis Keré
7. The simple school in Gando, initially designed to serve 150 children, has unfolded into a set of buildings that currently serves around 700 students. Later projects include an extension, teachers’ housing, and a library.
8. Without giving up pragmatism and the awareness that he has to deal with very severe economic and environmental constraints, Francis does not spare playful images to describe his processes: “you need strong, solid shoes and a big umbrella […] this is how you protect the fragile clay walls from the action of time.” Indeed, the playful aspect is very present in his works, since “all over the world, human beings are attracted by beauty, are inspired by beauty.”
9. His efforts to incorporate local manpower into construction sites have already employed hundreds of people and currently all of his projects in Africa are being built by people trained by him.
10. Besides design practice, Francis also has an academic career. He has been a professor at the Technische Universität München since 2017 and has previously studied at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design (Massachusetts, USA) and the Yale School of Architecture (Connecticut, USA).
11. The collaborative process developed with the community of Gando and the innovative use of materials and vernacular techniques focused on environmental comfort and spatial quality earned him the Global Award for Sustainable Architecture from the Cité de l’Architecture et du Patrimoine in 2009. “The building we raised looked modern, but it was the same clay my people knew, just used in a very different way.”
12. Francis was the first African architect to design a Serpentine Pavilion. Invited by London’s Serpentine Galleries in 2017, the architect imagined a tree-shaped structure, with a detached roof and curved walls formed by triangular modules in indigo, which represents strength in his culture.
13. In addition to building in Africa, Kéré has projects in Denmark, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States. Some of his most significant works are Xylem Pavilion (2019, Montana, United States), Lycee Schorge Secondary School (2016, Koudougou, Burkina Faso), and National Park of Mali (2010, Bamako, Mali).
14. Kéré collects awards and acknowledgments in the field of architecture. Besides the aforementioned Aga Khan Awards and the Global Award for Sustainable Architecture, Francis has won the BSI Swiss Architectural Award (2010), the Global Holcim Awards Gold (2012, Zurich, Switzerland), the Schelling Architecture Award (2014), as well as the Arnold W Brunner Memorial in Architecture from the American Academy of Arts and Letters (2017); and the Thomas Jefferson Foundation Medal in Architecture (2021).
15. Diébédo, in his language, means “the one who came to organize things”. Coincidence or not, Francis Kéré is the first black architect to receive the highest honor in architecture, the Pritzker Prize, and also the first African to receive it.
