Burkinabé architect and educator, Diébédo Francis Kéré, founder of Kéré Foundation and Kéré Architecture has been named winner of the 2022 Pritzker Architecture Prize, an award recognized as the architect’s highest honor.
Known for the Kéré Foundation, an NGO he founded to fundraise and advocate for children’s rights to comfortable classrooms, he built the Gando Primary School in Burkina Faso in 2001, a project under his NGO that later won him the Aga Khan Award for Architecture in 2004.
In 2005, Diébédo Francis Kéré who is a dual citizen of Burkina Faso and Germany founded Kéré Architecture in Berlin to expand his works in primary, secondary, post secondary and medical. This has helped him fulfill his dream of providing vocational skills and jobs for young people while addressing the problem of sustainable housing and design.
Born on 10th April 1965 in Gando, Burkina Faso, Diébédo Francis Kéré studied and graduated with an advanced degree in architecture from the Technical University of Berlin in 2004.
In addition to winning the 2022 Pritzker Architecture Prize, Diébédo Francis Kéré has several recognitions including the BSI Swiss Architectural Award in 2010, the Global Holcim Awards Gold in 2012, the Schelling Architecture Award in 2014, the Arnold W. Brunner Memorial Prize in Architecture from the American Academy of Arts & Letters in 2017 and the Thomas Jefferson Foundation Medal in Architecture in 2021.
Architect Diébédo Francis Kéré is a visiting Professor at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design and the Yale School of Architecture.
