The Architect Shaping Africa’s Future: Diébédo Francis Kéré

African architecture has received increasing international attention in the past decade, and Diébédo Francis Kéré, the winner of the 2022 Pritzker Architecture Prize, is, without doubt, a prominent driving force of the trend.

The Burkabé architect is best known for his unique applications of sustainable architecture that empower communities in infrastructure-hungry developing countries. Kéré has completed acclaimed projects from contemporary educational institutions and health facilities in his own rural community, through civic buildings across West Africa, to temporary structures in galleries, museums, and public spaces in the West.

The first projects of Francis Kéré in Burkina Faso

A self-taught architect, Diébédo Francis Kéré was born in 1965 and grew up in Gando, in Burkina Faso, a small village with almost no access to clean drinking water, void of electricity, modern infrastructure, let alone architecture. As the eldest son of the village chief, Kéré had the privilege to attend primary school, and at age seven, he left his community to live with his uncle in the nearest town to study.

In 1985, he uprooted again and moved to Berlin on a vocational carpentry scholarship. He settled in Germany, learned how to make furniture at night, and worked hard during the day to get a scholarship in architecture at the Technische Universität Berlin. He started attending the school in 1995, graduating in 2004 with an advanced degree in architecture.

Although living far from Burkina Faso, his heart never left his community back in Gando. Kéré wanted to share his knowledge with his people and ease the everyday life of his community, so he raised funds to build the first school in his home village. His first completed building, the Gando Primary School, was built with the active participation of the people of his community. It was also the first gesture of his many social commitments to elevate, educate and strengthen Gando, and villages alike across Africa. The project established the foundation for Kéré’s ideology and was granted the prestigious Aga Khan Award for Architecture for buildings benefitting Muslim communities.

The project catalyzed the establishment of the Kéré Foundation and marked the birth of Kéré Architecture, his own architecture firm through which Kéré realized further social and eco projects in Gando like the extension of the primary school as well as building a school library.

Architecture of Diébédo Francis Kéré

Together with the developments in Gando, most of Kéré’s projects use local materials in innovative and sustainable ways to respond to the extreme weather conditions unique to West Africa. Combining accessible and abundant materials like clay with modern engineering, Kéré designed durable facilities that protected against the region’s hot climate with natural ventilation alleviating the need for air-conditioning.