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Diébédo Francis Kéré


Biografie

Diébédo Francis Kéré’s natural, humble architecture

Building a school campus that makes the most of the natural resources available in Burkina Faso and the local community’s potential: the project by Diébédo Francis Kéré promoting sustainability and solidarity in architecture has been awarded the 2010 Swiss Architectural Award.

«Give a man a fish, and you nourish him once. Teach him to fish, and you nourish him for the rest of his life». This Chinese proverb seems to be the credo of Diébédo Francis Kéré, the inspiration that drove him back to Africa after studying in Germany to share the knowledge he had acquired with his people and encourage them to determine their own future.

The first son of the chief of the village of Gando, two hundred kilometres from the capital city Ouagadougou, Diébédo Francis Kéré bears the signs of his origins and of his uncommon destiny. At the age of seven he left his family to go to school in another town and learn to be a carpenter. This might have seemed crazy in a country where there are very few wooden constructions, as they tend to be devoured by termites, but it opened up the doors to a German ministry programme for economic cooperation and development.

laquo;I went to Berlin when I was 25. I was given a scholarship to go to evening school, and then I went to university to study architecture, », Diébédo Francis Kéré told swissinfo. «In Burkina Faso houses are victims of natural circumstances. A flood might wash everything away. Even when I was a little boy, I got angry seeing how much trouble people went to building something, only to see it destroyed in a flash. This is why I decided to study architecture, to bring stability and harmony where there was none».

With 45% of the population living below the poverty line and an illiteracy rate of more than 80%, Burkina Faso is one of the most fragile countries on the African continent. Communities survive primarily by relying on a primitive form of agriculture which is insufficient to cover their own needs. The domestic economy faces not only the uncertainty of international markets but the problems consequent upon climate change, which have made traditional lifestyles impossible.

A simple but revolutionary school
Halfway through his university studies, Kéré decided to go back to Gando and build a new elementary school, getting all the villagers to work on the project. «I wanted to build a modern building with inexpensive materials that would be suitable for the climate of Burkina Faso. In the rainy season we fight against the dampness of the soil and the driving rain attacks our walls, while in the dry season temperatures exceed 40°C. How can we ask children to study under these conditions, and ask teachers to make the sacrifice of coming to work in an oven in the countryside?

Kéré came up with a simple yet revolutionary new concept of architecture. «The building is made primarily out of raw earth bricks, with a double roof to protect it from the sun and rain and a natural ventilation system, for there is no electricity in Gando yet». The materials required can easily be found in the area and, once assembled, the structures can be raised with no need for a crane.

Built by the people, for the people
Kéré’s project was intended to be easy to understand and copy, though it was not easy to convince the villagers to collaborate at first. «When I got back, I explained to the people what I wanted to do, but they started shaking their heads and asking me whether I had not forgotten that a clay house is not water resistant. They thought I had lost my senses, and that the Europeans didn’t want people in Africa to build cement houses. After drawing the plan over and over again hundreds of times with my finger in the red earth, I finally managed to persuade them, and enthusiasm has prevailed ever since in the community ».

Men, women and children helped to build a little piece of their own future, Kéré says, showing pictures taken while the work was underway. The elementary school was built in ten months with a budget of 50,000 euro, and opened in October 2001. More and more teachers came from nearby towns, fascinated by the idea of a building that would shelter them from the elements and help pupils learn. Two years later homes were built for the teachers, with a system of channels for collecting rainwater for use in agriculture, and in 2008 the campus was enlarged with four new classrooms and a library.

In addition to his projects in Burkina Faso, Kéré is also busy at work in Switzerland, collaborating with three other architects on construction of the new premises of permanent exhibition facilities for the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Museum in Geneva.

Architecture’s humanity restored
Kéré’s work was awarded the Global Award for Sustainable Architecture last year and presented at MoMA in New York recently. The Gando schools project and expansion of a secondary school in the town of Dano, also in Burkina Faso, also won him the Swiss Architectural Award, promoted by the BSI with the sponsorship of the Federal Office of Culture and the Mendrisio Academy. «Kéré’s projects restore architecture’s most profound meaning as an activity which solves important problems where poverty and underdevelopment persist and architecture cannot ignore them,» comments the presiding judge Mario Botta in the competition catalogue.

In this sense, the value of building a school in his native village is not only architectural, but social and environmental. Kéré emigrated to Europe to study architecture and now lives in Germany, but he continues to work to achieve development in his native country.

«L’Africa needs us much more than Europe», he says with a smile. «I hope other young people will find the courage to go back, to start again from zero and build our future together. We definitely need Europe, the modern temple of knowledge, but the Europeans cannot promote these changes in our place».

Stefania Summermatter, swissinfo.ch
?Mendrisio

www.swissinfo.ch/ita/cultura/Larchitettura_umile_ed_essenziale_di_Francis_Kere.html?cid=28848822



Interview

Diébédo Francis Kéré’s natural, humble architecture

Building a school campus that makes the most of the natural resources available in Burkina Faso and the local community’s potential: the project by Diébédo Francis Kéré promoting sustainability and solidarity in architecture has been awarded the 2010 Swiss Architectural Award.

«Give a man a fish, and you nourish him once. Teach him to fish, and you nourish him for the rest of his life». This Chinese proverb seems to be the credo of Diébédo Francis Kéré, the inspiration that drove him back to Africa after studying in Germany to share the knowledge he had acquired with his people and encourage them to determine their own future.

The first son of the chief of the village of Gando, two hundred kilometres from the capital city Ouagadougou, Diébédo Francis Kéré bears the signs of his origins and of his uncommon destiny. At the age of seven he left his family to go to school in another town and learn to be a carpenter. This might have seemed crazy in a country where there are very few wooden constructions, as they tend to be devoured by termites, but it opened up the doors to a German ministry programme for economic cooperation and development.

laquo;I went to Berlin when I was 25. I was given a scholarship to go to evening school, and then I went to university to study architecture, », Diébédo Francis Kéré told swissinfo. «In Burkina Faso houses are victims of natural circumstances. A flood might wash everything away. Even when I was a little boy, I got angry seeing how much trouble people went to building something, only to see it destroyed in a flash. This is why I decided to study architecture, to bring stability and harmony where there was none».

With 45% of the population living below the poverty line and an illiteracy rate of more than 80%, Burkina Faso is one of the most fragile countries on the African continent. Communities survive primarily by relying on a primitive form of agriculture which is insufficient to cover their own needs. The domestic economy faces not only the uncertainty of international markets but the problems consequent upon climate change, which have made traditional lifestyles impossible.

A simple but revolutionary school
Halfway through his university studies, Kéré decided to go back to Gando and build a new elementary school, getting all the villagers to work on the project. «I wanted to build a modern building with inexpensive materials that would be suitable for the climate of Burkina Faso. In the rainy season we fight against the dampness of the soil and the driving rain attacks our walls, while in the dry season temperatures exceed 40°C. How can we ask children to study under these conditions, and ask teachers to make the sacrifice of coming to work in an oven in the countryside?

Kéré came up with a simple yet revolutionary new concept of architecture. «The building is made primarily out of raw earth bricks, with a double roof to protect it from the sun and rain and a natural ventilation system, for there is no electricity in Gando yet». The materials required can easily be found in the area and, once assembled, the structures can be raised with no need for a crane.

Built by the people, for the people
Kéré’s project was intended to be easy to understand and copy, though it was not easy to convince the villagers to collaborate at first. «When I got back, I explained to the people what I wanted to do, but they started shaking their heads and asking me whether I had not forgotten that a clay house is not water resistant. They thought I had lost my senses, and that the Europeans didn’t want people in Africa to build cement houses. After drawing the plan over and over again hundreds of times with my finger in the red earth, I finally managed to persuade them, and enthusiasm has prevailed ever since in the community ».

Men, women and children helped to build a little piece of their own future, Kéré says, showing pictures taken while the work was underway. The elementary school was built in ten months with a budget of 50,000 euro, and opened in October 2001. More and more teachers came from nearby towns, fascinated by the idea of a building that would shelter them from the elements and help pupils learn. Two years later homes were built for the teachers, with a system of channels for collecting rainwater for use in agriculture, and in 2008 the campus was enlarged with four new classrooms and a library.

In addition to his projects in Burkina Faso, Kéré is also busy at work in Switzerland, collaborating with three other architects on construction of the new premises of permanent exhibition facilities for the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Museum in Geneva.

Architecture’s humanity restored
Kéré’s work was awarded the Global Award for Sustainable Architecture last year and presented at MoMA in New York recently. The Gando schools project and expansion of a secondary school in the town of Dano, also in Burkina Faso, also won him the Swiss Architectural Award, promoted by the BSI with the sponsorship of the Federal Office of Culture and the Mendrisio Academy. «Kéré’s projects restore architecture’s most profound meaning as an activity which solves important problems where poverty and underdevelopment persist and architecture cannot ignore them,» comments the presiding judge Mario Botta in the competition catalogue.

In this sense, the value of building a school in his native village is not only architectural, but social and environmental. Kéré emigrated to Europe to study architecture and now lives in Germany, but he continues to work to achieve development in his native country.

«L’Africa needs us much more than Europe», he says with a smile. «I hope other young people will find the courage to go back, to start again from zero and build our future together. We definitely need Europe, the modern temple of knowledge, but the Europeans cannot promote these changes in our place».

Stefania Summermatter, swissinfo.ch
?Mendrisio

www.swissinfo.ch/ita/cultura/Larchitettura_umile_ed_essenziale_di_Francis_Kere.html?cid=28848822


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