As the climate changes and architecture’s focus shifts increasingly from grand structures to more sustainable, community-focused projects, it is fitting that Diébédo Francis Kéré should be among the most celebrated architects. His beautiful buildings are not just aesthetically pleasing but also designed from the ground up to complement their environments and sustain the communities they exist to serve.

This remarkable Secret Superhero’s work is quiet and understated and provides a new path for designers and architects seeking to produce practical, sustainable buildings in the ever-changing modern world. 

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FROM GANDO TO BERLIN…

Francis was born in Gando, Burkina Faso, in 1965. Gando is a small village of a couple of thousand people, located deep in Burkina Faso’s interior, and has no electricity or clean running water. It also had no school, and consequently when Francis was seven years old, his father, the chief of the village, sent him to a distant school  to learn to read and write, in order to assist with administrative duties back in Gando. 

Francis thrived in school and, on completing his studies, secured a scholarship to study in Germany where he attended the Technical University in Berlin and graduated with a degree in architecture, becoming the first person from Gando to acquire a degree in the process. Even as he was completing his diploma project, his attention remained firmly focussed on Gando.

While his fellow students were designing grand buildings and preparing for careers designing skyscrapers and similarly glamorous undertakings, Kéré decided his diploma project would be to not just design a primary school for Gando, but also to see it built.

…AND BACK AGAIN

This undertaking faced many challenges. One was the lack of skilled construction workers  in Gando, and then there was the cost of the project to be taken into account. Francis solved the latter problem through persistent fundraising, even asking for donations from his fellow students in order to raise the necessary funds for his dream school.

Eventually he was able to raise a little over $50,000, which may seem a trifling amount for a standard construction project, but Francis had no plans to build a standard school. 

The lack of skilled labor in Gando gave Francis an opportunity to attempt innovative construction techniques, which were vital to the success of the project. The standard construction methods employed in the region involved a lot of concrete, as one of the few materials perceived as hardy enough to cope with both the tremendous heat and violent flash flooding that was typical of the area. Unfortunately, while durable, concrete was a poor choice for temperature control and concrete buildings were often uncomfortably hot during the daytime; something that was highly inappropriate for a school building.

Francis resolved to use the more traditional material of clay for his school design. When he announced this on his return to Gando he was dismissed as a joker, as clay had not been used in the region for decades due to its susceptibility to flood damage. Using new techniques of pouring clay into casts, Francis was able to lead the community in constructing his project, not only getting a beautifully designed, comfortably ventilated, and highly practical school built in the village but also training many members of the community with valuable construction skills and completing the project comfortably within budget. The initial building, which provides room for 120 pupils, cost just $30,000 to construct. 

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A NOVEL LAUREATE

The Gando primary school project won Francis many awards and international recognition, but this has only bolstered his work in his home community. In the years since, Gando has added to the initial school with more administrative buildings, a library, a community center,  and a secondary school building that serves 1,000 students, all constructed using local materials and labor.

Although Gando remains a key focus, Kéré’s work and techniques have been in demand elsewhere, and over the last two decades his firm has produced some remarkable work around the globe in both architecture and art. Kéré’s artworks include Colorscape, a temporary installation at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 2016 which used lengthy strands of wool to create a visually remarkable exhibit, and the striking Sarbalé Ke (House of Celebration) installation at 2019’s Coachella festival.

There have also been numerous notable architecture projects, including a redevelopment of Mali’s national park and museum, and the celebrated 2017 Serpentine Pavillion, erected for London’s Serpentine Gallery, who commission a leading architect to design a temporary pavilion every summer.   

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Architecture as a celebration of the community

All of these projects share a common theme - open spaces which reflect and complement the community that surrounds them.

Even artworks like Colorscape are designed to be interactive, with visitors encouraged to feel the woolen strands, and this people-focused, sustainable approach to the environment also permeates all of Kéré’s buildings.

He has now been recognized for his achievements as the recipient of arguably the most prestigious prize in architecture, the 2022 Pritzker Prize, often described as the Nobel Prize of architecture. He joins a prestigious list of laureates that includes names such as Oscar Niemeyer, Norman Foster, Frank Gehry, and Zaha Hadid as the first black architect and first African to win the award.

This reflects a growing trend with the Prtizker Prize toward smaller scale architects whose work is more sustainable and community-focussed, and in Francis Kéré they have the ultimate example of this trend. He is a superhero not just for the people of Gando, but for architecture globally as it seeks to adjust to the changing demands of the modern world.