The country’s press welcomes the awarding of the Pritzker Prize to the Burkinabé architect Diébédo Francis Kéré, who is based in Germany, on March 15. This is the first time that this award, considered the Nobel of architecture, has been awarded to an African.
“Historical triumph and national pride”, can we read, this Wednesday, March 16, on the front page ofToday in Faso. “The Burkinabé Francis Kéré on the roof of world architecture”, enthuses that of The Paalga Observer. These two Burkina Faso dailies are celebrating the Pritzker Prize awarded the day before to Diébédo Francis Kéré. This annual award is considered the most prestigious in the field of architecture – an equivalent of the Nobel for the discipline, underline the two newspapers.
“Already crowned with several international distinctions, continues Today in Faso, the one who knew how to adapt pre-industrial techniques to the African context through the use of local materials such as earth, granite, wood in his achievements, impresses in his environment.” And to recall the itinerary of the architect “I was born with a native cattle [un village du centre-est du Burkina Faso] from his tender youth for his studies in Germany, Francis Diébédo Kéré, is today a national pride in the country of upright men that he carries in his heart.
Architecture rooted in the African continent
It is moreover in his native village that the 56-year-old architect “made his first work in 2001,” relate L’Observateur: “A school of compressed earth bricks [voir la photo ci-dessous] and cement surmounted by a canopy tin roof and
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Hugo Florent