"Can you imagine?" Diébédo Francis Kéré said to NPR, "I was born in Burkina Faso, a little village where there was no school. And my father wanted me to learn how to read and write very simply because then I could translate or read him his letters."
The first Black winner of the Pritzker Architecture Prize was as surprised as anyone else to be selected for the field's most famous prize. Many architects had openly supposed that 2022 would be Sir David Adjaye's year, who is best known for designing notable buildings as the Nobel Peace Center in Norway. Kéré, who is based in Berlin but centers much of his practice in Africa, has been—until now—far lesser known, with buildings that include primary schools and a healthcare clinic.
When he was twenty, in 1985, Kéré earned a scholarship to study carpentry in Berlin. But he also attended night school and was admitted to Technische Universität Berlin, from which he graduated in 2004 with an advanced degree in architecture. He was still a student when he designed and built the innovative Gando Primary School.
Kéré's architectural practice was inspired by his own experience attending school with around 100 other children in a region with temperatures over 100 F. "It's very hot inside. And there was no light, while outside, the sunlight was abundant. I think, one day I should make it better. I was thinking about space, about room, about how I could feel better." In his designs for Gando Primary School and Naaba Belem Goumma Secondary School, Kéré drew on traditional building materials such as local clay mixed with concrete, and emphasized shade and shadows, making spaces bright enough and letting air in, and thus reducing the need for air conditioning. He wanted the buildings to evoke the sense of an oasis (绿洲), a place for many children, to be happy and learn how to read and write.