Diébédo Francis Kéré

Born 1965 · Burkinabé-German · 8 buildings on the wall

Diébédo Francis Kéré (born 1965) is a Burkinabé-German architect, born in the village of Gando in Burkina Faso and based in Berlin, known for sustainable buildings made with local materials and with the people who will use them. He studied architecture at the Technische Universität Berlin, founded Kéré Architecture in 2005, and in 2022 became the first African-born architect to win the Pritzker Prize.

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His first building, the Gando Primary School (2001), has mud-brick walls under a wide, raised metal roof that keeps off the rain and lets air flow through to cool the classrooms; villagers helped build it, and it won the Aga Khan Award for Architecture in 2004. The Dano Secondary School (2007) is built of local laterite stone and faces east–west to cut the sun on its walls. The Centre for Earth Architecture in Mopti, Mali (2010), uses the same techniques as the region's great earthen mosques. The Opera Village (Operndorf Afrika) in Laongo (2011), begun with the German director Christoph Schlingensief, includes a school, workshops and a medical centre. Diébédo Francis Kéré's projects are studied for climate-wise design built with local skills.

See the 8 buildings ↓