Francis Kéré wins the 2022 Pritzker Architecture Prize
African architect becomes first black person in history to receive Pritzker Architecture award
By Yeska Coelho
Submitted at Mar 16, 2022, 4:20 AM
03 min de leitura
Considered the "Nobel Prize of Architecture", the Pritzker is the most important award an architect can receive, and this year's victory was literally historic. The winner was architect Diébedo Francis Kéré, a native of the African country of Burkina Faso. The architect is recognized for both his projects and social activism, as he is always seeking to empower and transform communities in each of his works. Kéré was also awarded for his "sustainable designs in areas of extreme scarcity," said Tom Pritzker, president of the Hyatt Foundation, sponsor of the event, in a statement. Schools, health centers, residential buildings and public spaces are the architect's flagship in African countries such as Benin, Togo, Kenya, Mozambique and Sudan.
Kéré supports the rational use of materials and advocates balanced use to avoid waste in architectural projects: "I hope to change the paradigm, to encourage people to dream and take risks. It's not because you're rich that you should waste material. It's not because you're poor that you shouldn't try to create something of quality, (...) Everyone deserves quality, everyone deserves luxury and everyone deserves comfort. We are interconnected and concerns about the climate, democracy and scarcity are concerns for all of us," he said. During the awards ceremony, the architect was praised for a project at a primary school in Burkina Faso. With a worldwide career, the architect won the Aga Khan Award in 2024 and was the designerof the Serpentine Pavilion in London's Hyde Park in 2017. Below, check out a gallery of projects designed by Kéré to learn more about the architect's work:
The architect is recognized for both his projects and social activism, as he is always seeking to empower and transform communities in each of his works. Kéré was also awarded for his "sustainable designs in areas of extreme scarcity," said Tom Pritzker, president of the Hyatt Foundation, sponsor of the event, in a statement. Schools, health centers, residential buildings and public spaces are the architect's flagship in African countries such as Benin, Togo, Kenya, Mozambique and Sudan. 
