“Architecture is primarily a service to humanity” says Pritzker Architecture Prize-winner Diébédo Francis Kéré
Burkinabè architect Diébédo Francis Kéré has won this year’s Pritzker Architecture Prize, becoming the first African architect to win the award.
A historical change in world perspectives, with a leap forward in designing and imagining architecture, with the African continent that opens the way to a new way of understanding construction, with Diébédo Francis Kéré to indicate the path.
Born in Gando, Burkina Faso, he is the first African and the first Black architect to win the prestigious prize, which has been awarded annually since 1979.
Kéré was recognised for his body of work that “empowers and transforms communities through the process of architecture“.
“He has served as a singular beacon in architecture,” said the Pritzker jury.
"He has shown us how architecture today can reflect and serve needs, including the aesthetic needs, of peoples throughout the world."
Based in Berlin, Germany, Kéré has completed numerous schools and health centres across Africa in the Republic of Benin, Togo, Kenya, Mozambique, Mali, Sudan and his native Burkina Faso.
One of his earliest projects was Gando Primary School in his home village, which he began designing while at university in Germany. In a video interview with Dezeen, he said the school was “not a traditional African building”.
As with many of Kéré’s projects, including the Lycée Schorge Secondary School in Burkina Faso, it incorporates local materials and was designed in response to the local climate.
"He knows, from within, that architecture is not about the object but the objective; not the product but the process," said the jury.
“Francis Kéré’s entire body of work shows us the power of materiality rooted in place. His buildings, for and with communities, are directly of those communities – in their making, their materials, their programs and their unique characters.”
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