Burkina Faso’s Diébédo Francis Kéré has become the first African and the first Black person to win the Pritzker prize, architecture’s equivalent of the Nobel.
Kéré’s work has consistently highlighted the role of design in creating what he calls “coherent and peaceful cities”. When Burkina Faso’s National Assembly building in Ouagadougou was burned down during the country’s 2014 uprising, Kéré put forward a proposal for the new complex. It was to be a symbol of the transparency and inclusiveness that the protestors demanded of the new government.
For the central building (still under construction), he envisaged a stepped pyramid, whose façade would double up as a public space, accessible to citizens day and night. It featured planted terraces which would celebrate, and demonstrate, the country’s (...)
