Francis Kéré on Building Stories

Francis Kéré, architect, educator, builder, and one of the most compelling advocates for architecture as a force for dignity, participation, and social transformation. Kéré’s architecture begins with people and for a building to exist, it has to traverse a process of listening, learning, and designing and fabricating together with the public it is meant for.

Born in Gando, Burkina Faso, and based in Berlin, Kéré first came to international attention through a school he designed for his home village while still a student, in 2001. Built with local materials and the participation of the community, the project demonstrated that architecture could be elegant, climate-responsive, and socially transformative. Since then, his work has expanded from schools and clinics to national assemblies, memorials, museums, and cultural institutions around the world. In 2022, he received the Pritzker Architecture Prize, the highest honor in his field.

In this conversation with Paola Antonelli, Kéré reflects on his new book, Building Stories, which foregrounds sketches, conversations, memories, and acts of collective making rather than finished masterpieces. Together, they discuss participation, local knowledge, democracy, and architecture's capacity to create dignity, agency, and belonging.

You can find images related to this interview on our Instagram grid @design.emergency.

Design Emergency is supported by a grant from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts.

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