Francis Kéré named as 2023 Praemium Imperiale Award - Architecture

Berlin-based Burkinese architect Francis Kéré has been named the 2023 Praemium Imperiale laureate for architecture by the Japan Art Association. Announcing the achievement, the Japan Art Association said in their citation about Kéré:

“Seeking to combine his country's skills and materials with innovative design and relevant engineering solutions, with a priority of working for and with local communities, Diébédo Francis Kéré has transformed architecture not only in Burkina Faso but throughout Africa and well beyond.

This 'thinking differently' is at the heart of Kéré’s architecture, architecture of striking beauty.”

CMAF Francis Kere. Lance Gerber. Photograph courtesy of Coachella.

Kéré was honored as part of the award’s 34th year and follows 2022 winners Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa, founders of SANAA, the 2021 winner Glenn Murcutt, and the 2019 winners Tod Williams & Billie Tsien.

The other winners of the 2023 Praemium Imperiale Award were Vija Celmins (Painting category), Olafur Eliasson (Sculpture category), Wynton Marsalis (Music category), and Robert Wilson (Theater-Cinema category).

Francis Kéré, (2022 Pritzker Architecture Prize) was born in Gando, Burkina Faso, in 1965, he studied architecture at the Technical University of Berlin. In 2005, while living in Berlin, he set up Kéré Architecture and has since designed a portfolio of notable works, including the 2017 Serpentine Pavilion, installations at Coachella, and a pavilion for the Tippet Rise Art Center fashioned from a collection of tree trunks.

Kéré's vocation to become an architect stems from a personal commitment to serve the community he grew up in and a belief in the transformative potential of beauty. He is known for his socially driven approach to architecture and his innovative construction strategies that combine modern engineering with traditional building techniques, particularly in regard to his projects in his home country of Burkina Faso.

Exterior view. Gando School Extension by Francis Kéré. Photograph by Erik Jan Ouwerkerk. Courtesy of ICO Museum

Lycée Schorge Secondary School by Francis Kéré. Photograph © Iwan Baan

Kamwokya Community Centre by Kéré Architecture. Photograph by Jaime Herraiz, copyright Kéré Architecture

Serpentine Pavilion 2017, designed by Francis Kéré. Serpentine Gallery, London (23 June – 8 October 2017) © Kéré Architecture. Photograph © 2017 Iwan Baan.

Xylem Pavilion for the Tippet Art Center Rise by Francis Kéré. Photography by Iwan Baan. Courtesy of Tippet Art Center Rise

Burkina Institute of Technology, photograph courtesy of Francis Kéré

Gando Primary School, photograph courtesy of Erik-Jan Owerkerk

Dano Secondary School by Francis Kéré. Photograph by Erik-Jan Ouwerkerk

Diébédo Francis Kéré at Kéré Architecture's studio in Berlin. Image courtesy of The Japan Art Association, The Sankei Shimbun

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More information

Diébédo Francis Kéré

Diébédo Francis Kéré (b.1965, in Gando, Burkina Faso, west Africa) trained at the Technical University of Berlin in Germany, started his Berlin based practice, Kéré Architecture, in 2005. Kéré Architecture has been recognised nationally and internationally with awards, including the Aga Khan Award for Architecture (2004) for his first building, a primary school in Gando, Burkina Faso; LOCUS Global Award for Sustainable Architecture (2009); Global Holcim Award Gold (2011 and 2012); Green Planet Architects Award (2013); Schelling Architecture Foundation Award (2014); and the Kenneth Hudson Award –European Museum of the Year (2015).

Projects undertaken by Francis Kéré span countries, including Burkina Faso,Mali, China, Mozambique, Kenya, Togo, Sudan, Germany and Switzerland. He has taught internationally, including the Technical University of Berlin, and he has held professorships at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and Accademia di Architettura di Mendriso in Switzerland.

Kéré’s work has recently been the subject of solo exhibitions: Radically Simple at the Architecture Museum, Munich (2016) and The Architecture of Francis Kéré: Building for Community, Philadelphia Museum of Art (2016). His work has also been selected for group exhibitions: Small Scale, Big Change: New Architectures of Social Engagement, Museum of Modern Art, New York (2010) and Sensing Spaces, Royal Academy, London (2014).

Among his main works are the Primary School (2001) and the Library (under construction) of Gando, Burkina Faso; the Health and Social Promotion Center (2014) and the Opera Village (under construction), both in Laongo, Burkina Faso; the Satellite of the Volksbühne Theater at the Tempelhof Airport, in Berlin (temporary installation, 2016); or the Pavilion for the Serpentine Gallery of the year 2017.