Burkina Faso school and library by Francis Kéré
Photo: © Sierd Hoekstra, CC BY-SA 4.0,via Wikimedia Commons.
Francis Kéré’s visionary power lies in transforming architecture from an act of imposition into one of belonging.
He seeks to improve architecture in Africa not by rejecting tradition, but by reawakening it—building with earth, light, and wind, and through the hands of the community itself.
He calls his process radically simple: collective, intelligent, and deeply human.
Award-winning yet grounded, Kéré’s spaces breathe—where light cools, wind moves freely, and architecture becomes an instrument of life.
The quotes below are taken from the Al Jazeera interview in the video above.
Photo: © GandoIT, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Dano Secondary School
“My first experience with architecture in Africa… were the dark and very hot classrooms in school.”
Here, light and air replace darkness and heat. The lifted roof lets the building breathe — proof that radical simplicity can bring both comfort and beauty.
Photo: © Sierd Hoekstra, CC BY-SA 4.0,via Wikimedia Commons.
Lycée Schorge, Koudougou
Filtered sunlight slips between clay and wood, painting moving patterns on the floor.
Kéré calls this radically simple—using what is near, building with imagination, and creating dignity from earth, shade, and rhythm.
Photo: © GandoIT, CC BY-SA 3.0,via Wikimedia Commons.
Library Gando
Openings in the roof scatter sunlight like constellations.
“I wanted to gain knowledge to go back to Burkina and improve architecture.”
Each circle of light becomes a symbol of learning—illumination drawn straight from the sky.