Meet the Bissa Architect who made history by winning the 2022 Pritzker Prize

Diébédo Francis Kéré’s first-ever architecture project was building a school in his hometown of Gando, a remote village in Burkina Faso in West Africa. And on Tuesday, the Burkinabé architect received the Pritzker Prize, architecture’s highest honor, in part for his dedication to his community and his roots. With the award, Kéré becomes the first Black architect, and the first architect from Africa, to win the Pritzker Prize in its 43-year history.

“I grew up in a community where there was no kindergarten, but where community was your family,” Kéré said, per the Pritzker Prize biography. “I remember the room where my grandmother would sit and tell stories with a little light, while we would huddle close to each other and her voice inside the room enclosed us, summoning us to come closer and form a safe place. This was my first sense of architecture.”

Pritzker Prize committee chair Tom Pritzker said in a statement that Kéré’s buildings “demonstrate beauty, modesty, boldness and invention.”

“Francis Kéré’s entire body of work shows us the power of materiality rooted in place,” the jury citation reads. “His buildings, for and with communities, are directly of those communities – in their making, their materials, their programs and their unique characters. They are tied to the ground on which they sit and to the people who sit within them. They have presence without pretense and an impact shaped by grace.”

His work, Kéré told NPR, is inspired by his own experience attending school in crowded, hot buildings. “You will sit and it’s very hot inside,” he explained. “And there was no light, while outside, the sunlight was abundant and in my head, I think, the idea one day grew [that] as an adult, I should make it better. I was thinking about space, about room, about how I can feel better.”

Kéré wants his schools to evoke a sense of oasis for students, telling NPR, “I am creating a huge canopy for many, many children, to be happy and learn how to read and write.”

Kéré is currently based in Berlin, but much of his work is centered in West Africa—building schools, a health care clinic, and government buildings. And though his work has primarily foucused on West Africa, particularly his homeland of Burkina Faso, Kéré’s architecture has been showcased on global stages in recent years, including in London, United Kingdom and Palm Springs, California.

In a profession that is predominately white, Kéré’s win is notable. “I don’t want to talk about racism directly, but this is a field where you need a lot of resources,” he told the Guardian after winning. “You really need to be strong and be lucky, as competitions are not always so open. I hope that young people in Africa will see me and know that this is a possible path for them too.”

Kéré, who is 56, was in disbelief at his win; the prize typically is more of a lifetime achievement honor. “I still don’t believe” the win, he told the New York Times. “I’ve been pushing this work in architecture to bring good quality architecture to my people.”

Kéré, who is also a respected architecture professor—he has taught at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and Yale School of Architecture—hopes his win reminds people that luxurious architecture is for everyone, not just the wealthy.

“I am hoping to change the paradigm, push people to dream and undergo risk. It is not because you are rich that you should waste material. It is not because you are poor that you should not try to create quality,” Kéré told the Pritzker Prize after his win. “Everyone deserves quality, everyone deserves luxury, and everyone deserves comfort. We are interlinked and concerns in climate, democracy and scarcity are concerns for us all.”

Credit:www.townandcountrymag.com