CHAPTER 1: LIFE AND FIRST PROJECT OF FRANCIS KÉRÉ

CHAPTER 1: LIFE AND FIRST PROJECT OF FRANCIS KÉRÉ

Diébédo Francis Kéré was born in the small village of Gando, in the country Burkina Faso - West Sub-Saharan Africa - in 1965 (opposite page). The village had no electricity, access to clean water, or even a school. To make his eldest son knows how to read and write, to read his letters and write to him, his father, the head of the village, sent him to school (the first child in the village to have access to education). However, near Gando, there were no schools, so at the age of seven, Diébédo went to study in the city of Tenkodogo, 200 kilometers from the country’s capital, Ouagadougou. Later, Francis received a scholarship from the Carl Duisberg Society to undertake a course in carpentry, moving to Germany in 1985. After completing high school, Kéré obtained the academic qualification - Baccalauréat - to study architecture at the Berlin Technique university, between 1995 and 2004 (ARCHITECTURAL RECORD, 2014):

[...] a lot of people don’t know, but I came to Germany to take a carpenter training course. That’s why I came to Germany. So I decided to learn something else, instead of continuing in carpentry, because Burkina Faso is a landlocked country. It is located in the Sahel region. There is no wood. (KÉRÉ, 2021)¹

In 1998, while still a student, Diébédo created the now called Kéré Foundation, formerly Schulbausteine für Gando (School Bricks for Gando), with the aim, at the time, of acquiring financial resources for the construction of a school in Gando. At first, Francis was asked to rebuild the only school built in 1984, which was in danger of collapsing, however, it was decided to design a new one. Two years later, he managed to obtain the amount needed to build the Primary School in Gando, which was completed in 2001. In 2004, in addition to obtaining his diploma as an architect and urban planner, Francis received the international Aga Khan Award for the project, for “elegant architectural clarity, achieved with the most humble means and materials, and for the transforming value”, according to those responsible for the award (LEPIK, 2016).

The Primary School of Gando was responsible for a change of thinking in the community, because it was with the efforts of the local population that it could actually be built. Men and women were mobilized and the knowledge necessary to carry out different tasks was transferred to them. The collective awareness that under the guidance of an architect and, above all, a member from the village, it would be possible to continue creating new buildings, meeting the local demands of various functions, made the initial purpose acquire proportions far beyond the expectations outlined by an architecture student in training:

We built a school at that time for 200 children, but before long, more children wanted to go to school, so we had to build an expansion, but we also needed to build housing for the teachers. One thing made another happen, so we started to build a lot in the village, and then people started to discover my work, asking if I could do the same for them, and today, in 2017, 16 years after building the first school, I have a team of maybe 200, 300 builders, welders, carpenters, bricklayers... Countless people are working in different parts of Burkina Faso, this is incredible. (KÉRÉ, 2017)²

¹ Excerpt from the interview shown on the TV show ‘Conversa com Bial’ on Rede Globo on April 5, 2021.

² Excerpt from the interview entitled “Francis Kéré Interview: The Hometown School launched his career” to Dezeen Magazine in 2017. Authorial translation.

Convincing the community: building the Gando Primary School

Clay (contained in the reddish clay of the region) is the most accessible raw material in Burkina Faso, but the population associates the material with poverty and ephemerality because, in the period of intense rains, it is easily washed away by water, and the repair of walls settled with the material demands a lot of effort from the population, which has come to value western materials over those available in loco (LEPIK, 2016):

[...] when they (people) realized that I was planning to use clay, they were shocked. “A mud building cannot stand in the rainy season and Francis wants us to use it to build the school. Is that why he spent so much time in Europe studying instead of working in the field with us?” (KÉRÉ, 2013)³

Diébédo would not traditionally use clay, as the people of Gando feared. He had learned in Germany how to create bricks with a small amount of cement - between 8% and 10% - added to clay, to design more durable brick walls that would still be able to maintain performance - low thermal conduction - characteristic of the clay, extremely necessary for the region, as the temperature in Gando can reach over 40º Celsius. With the help of a brick machine operated by two people, the dry mixture of clay and cement is pressed, thus, the brick already acquires the final shape according to the mold used. To reduce cracks during drying, the bricks are covered with a plastic sheet (LEPIK, 2016):

After the rain, everyone came to the complex, as they were sure that the rain had destroyed the wall. But not. The rain had no way of destroying it. It was solid. It was standing. And then everyone believed in that technology. (KÉRÉ, 2020)4

As with the bricks, all other stages of project design and construction involved dialogue with the community. With the help of the Agency of the Ministry of Infrastructure, Housing and Transport - LOCOMAT - qualified local professionals instructed people, teaching construction techniques, so they could acquire autonomy. However, there was an effort on the part of men and women in Gando that combined technical learning with traditional cultural aspects, very striking and specific, such as the process of making the clay floor, described by Diébédo: according to him, younger men beat, standing, on the dry clay, with an instrument made with a wooden handle and a stone base, for many hours, repeatedly; then their mothers, bent over, beat the floor with a smaller wooden instrument, while other women pour water, and the men played drums, helping to create a rhythm for everyone to follow along; finally, other women are responsible for polishing the floor with stones that fit in their hands, rubbing the stone against the floor for hours and hours. In the end, the result is a smooth and well-compacted floor (KÉRÉ, 2013).

The walls were assembled with earth mortar, over the raised shallow foundation composed of stones. The openings in the wall in the north and south directions are more vertical and are sealed by metallic blinds painted in yellow, with the ability to move the “blades”, making it possible to filter the amount of daylight that enters the classrooms, according to the need. Brick pillars projected beyond the wall support the structure of the reinforced concrete beams, responsible for supporting the

³ (KÉRÉ, 2013): excerpt and information extracted from the ‘TED Talk’ given by Francis Kéré in 2013, entitled “Diébédo Francis Kéré: How to build with clay… and with a community”. Authorial translation.

4 Excerpt from the online interview for the 27th World Congress of Architects - UIA2021Rio, made by the architect Miguel Pinto Guimarães. Authorial translation.

weight of the roof system. The system has two layers, brick, and metal, and the roof structure is formed by common steel bars, commonly used as reinforcement for concrete structures.5 In classrooms, the ceiling has the two materials used together (brick and bar steel)6 (KÉRÉ, 2013).

In 2001, 120 students attended the school. In 2016, 844 students started to attend the school: “[...] the children, they love it. And for me and my community, this project was a great success (Gando Primary School). It opened several doors to do several projects in Gando” (KÉRÉ, 2013).

Kéré Architecture: other relevant works and current projects

Founded in 2005, the firm ‘Kéré Architecture’ works with a diverse range of projects, “from civic infrastructure to temporary installations”, according to the official website. The office is located in Berlin, Germany, and has projects and proposals in the United States, China, Italy, England, and Germany, among other nations. It operates mainly on the African continent: in Mozambique, Kenya, the Republic of Benin, Nigeria, Uganda, Mali, and Sudan, with emphasis on Burkina Faso, where most of the projects built to date up to the publication of this essay are located, in addition to a team linked to the Berlin office that carries out projects in the region.

In Gando, the Gando Primary School complex was created, comprising the school itself (2001), the Teacher’s Housing (2004), the Primary School Extension (2008) and the School Library (2010 -); the Naaba Belem Goumma Secondary School (2011 -) and the Songtaaba Women’s Center (2011 -) are being built. Also in Burkina Faso, the Dano Secondary School (2007), the Health and Social Promotion Center (2012 - 2014) in Laongo, the Surgical Clinic and Health Center (2014) in Leo, the Lycée Schorge Secondary School ( 2014 - 2016) and the Noomdo Orphanage (2013 - 2016) in Koudougou; the Vila Ópera Remdoogo (2010 -) is under construction in Laongo and there is a project for the construction of the National Assembly of Burkina Faso (2015 -)7. In 2010, in Mali, the Center for Earth Architecture and the National Park were built.

The most recent projects are the Burkina Institute of Technology (2020 -), the Exilmuseum (2020 -) in Berlin, and the National Assembly of Benin (2019 -). The most recent completed work is the SKF-RTL Early Childhood Learning Center (2016-2020) in Kenya. In an interview with the journalist Pedro Bial, on Rede Globo’s television program entitled ‘Conversa com Bial’, in 2021, Brazilian architect Miguel Pinto Guimarães talks about the partnership with Diébédo in the construction of a sustainable village near Jericoacoara, on the coast of Ceará. It is still under negotiation, but the project involves the construction of private houses, social housing, schools, and hotels, among other typologies. According to the architect Miguel Pinto, it is based on sustainability, using materials and techniques from local artisans and in dialogue with the two neighboring fishing villages.

5 The steel bars form the space trusses that support the metal tile, purposefully raising the wall covering, allowing air circulation.

6 Mud bricks are structured by steel bars and concrete beams. 10 cm of spacing at the end of each end of the ceiling allows hot air to pass through and be channeled out through the trusses, while windows allow cool air in, cooling the classrooms (LEPIK, 2016, p. 35).

7 The years in parentheses represent the start and end date of the project. The lack of a second date after the hyphen represents the continuity of the construction, that is, it was not finalized until the publication date of this essay.