Burkinabe architect Francis Kéré receives prestigious Pritzker Prize for harking back to African building tradition

Diébédo Francis Kéré from Burkina Faso wins the Pritzker Prize, the Nobel Prize for architecture. ‘Kéré knows exactly how to build in the African climate: sober and effective, but incredibly beautiful in its simplicity,’ says Berend van der Lans, director of African Architecture Matters.

Scarcity of materials, energy, water and care resources, a scorching climate. For architect Diébédo Francis Kéré, the problems facing more and more countries are a given. In Gando, Burkina Faso – one of the poorest countries in Africa – he grew up as the eldest son of the village chief, and he was the first out of the village to go to school. A school that wasn’t there; so at the age of seven he went to Tenkodogo, where he was taught in a cement block classroom, with no ventilation or daylight. In this hot coop, where he sat for hours with a hundred classmates, he promised himself that one day he would make better schools.

Fifty years later, Kéré (1965) wins the Pritzker Prize, which is considered the Nobel Prize for architecture. He realized buildings for primary and secondary schools, a university campus and medical faculties in Burkina Faso, Kenya, Mozambique and Uganda. His architecture has delivered ‘exponential’ results, according to the jury, not only by providing education for children and medical treatment for the sick, but also by providing residents with work and learning a craft. In this way, ‘his work serves the local community and contributes to a more stable future’, the jury wrote.

Contagious enthusiasm

Kéré ‘rolled’ into architecture after going to Berlin in 1985 to study carpentry, where he developed a taste for design. With a scholarship he went to the Technical University in Berlin, where he decided to use his knowledge and skills for his village. He set up a foundation to collect money for the construction of classrooms, and in 2001 he built Gando Primary School with his fellow villagers. They used earth to make building blocks for the facades. The roof – made of simple sheet material – has been placed on top like an enormous canopy to keep the sun out. The open space and hatches provide cross ventilation.

The success of Gando Primary School earned him the Aga Khan Award for Architecture in 2004, and prompted him to set up his own office in Berlin, where he lives.

‘Kéré knows exactly how to build in the African climate: sober and effective, but incredibly beautiful in its simplicity,’ says Berend van der Lans, director of the Dutch non-profit organization African Architecture Matters. The architect harks back to the African building tradition, which was forgotten with the rise of modernism. Following in the footsteps of the West, people switched to concrete, steel and glass, the ‘architecture of progress’, which gave prestige. Climatically, however, the flats and towers are problematic; cooling is done with energy-guzzling air conditioning installations, and the transport of materials is also polluting.

‘What strikes me is how he teaches residents that you can make something special with materials that are literally in the backyard,’ says architectural photographer Iwan Baan, who has photographed much of Kéré’s work and traveled with him through Burkina Faso last year for a photo book. on traditional African architecture. ‘The idea that you are poor when you are in a mud house lives, he has turned it upside down by creating beautiful spaces with loam.’ Baan describes the architect as ‘cheerful’, with ‘an infectious enthusiasm’. ‘That helps to get people involved in big plans.’ Such as the two parliament buildings he works on in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso and Porto-Novo, Benin.

Socially driven

Outside of Africa, he received prestigious commissions for Serpentine Gallery in London’s Kensington Gardens (2017) and an installation at the Coachella music festival in California (2019). For these expressive designs, he was inspired by the Burkinabe baobab tree. The architect was invited as a guest lecturer at the American universities Harvard and Yale, and has received numerous awards, including the Prince Claus Award 2017. Now he is the first black architect to win the Pritzker Prize, following in the footsteps of star architects such as Rem Koolhaas and Sir Norman Foster. Although Kéré fits more in the line of recent prize winners, who are activist and socially driven, such as the French duo Lacaton & Vassal that won last year, and the Chilean Alejandro Aravena – now a member of the jury.

“I hope to change the paradigm,” says Kéré. ‘Just because you’re rich doesn’t mean you should be wasting material. Just because you’re poor doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to create quality. Everyone deserves quality, everyone deserves luxury, and everyone deserves comfort. We are interconnected, and concerns about climate, democracy and scarcity are issues that concern us all.’