The 2022 Pritzker Architecture Prize has been awarded to Burkinabè architect Diébédo Francis Kéré.
The architect, educator and social activist who was born in Gando, Burkina Faso and is based in Berlin, was awarded the 2022 Pritzker Architecture Prize for his acclaimed socially motivated work ranging from schools and heath facilities to civic buildings.
“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,” says Kéré. “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.”
Diébédo Francis Kéré is the winner of the 2022 Pritzer Architecture Prize. Photograph by Lars Borges
The Pritzker Architecture Prize jury, chaired by past laureate Alejandro Aravena, praised Kéré’s work for showing an unwavering sense of community and connection to place through his use of local materials, attention to context, and innovative and sustainable construction techniques.
“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,” reads the jury citation.
“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.”
Xylem at Tippet Rise Art Centre in Montana, United States (2019). Photograph by Iwan Baan
“Francis Kéré is pioneering architecture – sustainable to the earth and its inhabitants – in lands of extreme scarcity. He is equally architect and servant, improving upon the lives and experiences of countless citizens in a region of the world that is at times forgotten,” says Tom Pritzker, chair of The Hyatt Foundation, the sponsor of the prize.
“Through buildings that demonstrate beauty, modesty, boldness and invention, and by the integrity of his architecture and geste, Kéré gracefully upholds the mission of this Prize.”
Kéré’s diverse oeuvre takes in the Startup Lions Campus vocational training centre in Turkana County, Kenya (2021), the Xylem gathering space at Tippet Rise Art Centre in Montana, United States (2019), Léo Doctors’ Housing in Léo, Burkina Faso (2019), Lycée Schorge Secondary School in Koudougou, Burkina Faso (2016), the National Park of Mali (2010) and his Tree of Life for the Serpentine Pavilion (2017) in the UK.
The architect and his practice Kéré Architecture has also produced plans for the Burkina Faso National Assembly and the Benin National Assembly.
Burkina Faso National Assembly. Rendering courtesy of Kéré Architecture
Source: Architecture Today