KemetLeads
Francis Kéré
The first child his village ever sent to school came home and built the village a school out of its own clay.
The rise
Born on 10 April 1965 in Gando, Burkina Faso, son of the village chief and the first child there sent away to school, he trained as a carpenter and won a scholarship to Berlin. Still a student, he set up a foundation to raise the money for a school in Gando and drew the building himself.
What they did
Gando Primary School opened in 2001, built by the villagers from compressed clay under a raised tin roof that draws heat out without electricity; it won the Aga Khan Award in 2004 and made a village material into a technique the profession studies. The Serpentine Pavilion and Benin's National Assembly followed; in 2022 he became the first African and first Black Pritzker laureate.
The full picture
His practice is based in Berlin and much of its work is abroad; the celebrated buildings are schools, clinics and pavilions, not the housing African cities lack. The Burkinabè parliament he designed after the 2014 uprising is stalled by the coups since, and the finished Benin assembly was built by a Chinese state contractor.
Why it matters
He showed that building with the clay underfoot and the hands of the village is a discipline rather than a concession, and the prize that had never gone to an African came for a primary school in Gando.
“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.”