Kéré Architecture founder, architect, educator, and social activist Diébédo Francis Kéré received the 2022 Pritzker Architecture Prize. This award is recognized as the highest honor of architecture at an international level.
“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. 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 Kere
Burkina Faso-born and Berlin-based Francis Kéré, who is working for the empowerment of societies through architecture, once again gets the spotlight by claiming the 2022 Pritzker Prize. With his trust in social justice and unity, he brilliantly uses local materials to tackle the climate crisis. He carries out new projects in countries with difficult living conditions, where architecture or infrastructure is not highly developed. Constructing modern educational institutions, health facilities, residences, and public spaces means much more than architecture for people who live in geographies where resources are limited. He is leading sustainable architecture for the development of societies in countries with famine.
Shedding light on the power of Kéré’s vision, the jury of the 2022 Pritzker Architecture Prize cited: “Kéré knows that architecture is not about the object but the objective; not the product, but the process. All of Francis Kéré's work shows us the power of materiality rooted in place. The buildings he has built for and with the communities belong directly to these communities; in their making, materials, programs, and their unique characters.”
