Honoring the 2022 Laureate, the Burkinabé architect Francis Kére, The Pritzker Prize releases a ceremony video from the recently opened Marshall Building at the LSE, designed by the 2020 Pritzker Laureates Yvonne Farrell, and Shelley McNamara. The documentary includes remarks by the awardee, Tom Pritzker, and previous Laureates such as Alejandro Aravena, Norman Foster, Anne Lacaton, and Jean-Philippe Vassal. This ceremony presents Kéré with the 2022 Pritzker Prize medallion, the highest honor in architecture, certifying him as a Laureate for his extraordinary work with communities and architectural ingenuity.
“What are the challenges today? What is our big concern today, for everyone and for architects, and for humans? What [is] so important to us? Climate crisis is real”. As part of his speech during the ceremony, Francis Kere remarked on the importance of architecture as a key role in facing population growth and the current conflict for resources. (…) Materials [are] limited...conflicts for resources will intensify everywhere around the world, and population growth is imminent. No matter where we are from, this should concern us.” Francis Kére.
During the ceremony, Alejandro Aravena, Pritzker Jury Chair, and 2016 Laureate claimed that “we are expanding the toolbox.” The Chilean architect stressed the importance of Kere’s contribution to “new role models facing challenges we have not seen before” (…) “We want to celebrate [Fracis] today, for showing us another possible path.” Reflections by previous Laureates, Norman Foster (1999), Rem Koolhaas (2000), Glenn Murcutt (2002), Jean Nouvel (2008), Farrell and McNamara (2020), Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal (2021), attest to Kéré’s ability to present “beauty, modesty, boldness, and invention all at the same time.” Vassal describes the work of Kéré with “some words that we don’t choose so often in architecture: happiness, kindness, agility.”
“As an architect, he values, and he orchestrates the talent of the authors to make a collective work, and this is very important and very new in architecture.” Jean-Philippe Vassal
Founded by Francis Kére in 2005, with a dual focus on design and social commitment, Kéré Architecture designs and builds contemporary architecture that feeds the imagination with an afro-futurist vision. Informed by tradition, the studio explores new modes of construction and innovative uses of local resources and participatory design methods. Francis Kéré participated as a designer of two installations dedicated to the voices of the African continent and was curator in The 23rd Triennale Milano. This year the studio completed the Kamwokya Community Playground in Kampala, Uganda.
