Francis Kéré: A Spokesperson of African Architecture? Modernism and Decolonization

Abstract

In the context of past winners of the Pritzker Architecture Prize, how can one interpret the decision to honor the architectural work of Francis Kéré in 2022? This article problematizes the West’s interest in African architecture. Is it really due to the fact that African architecture excels in conditions of scarcity and climate crisis? The 18th Venice Architecture Biennale shows that Africa can be regarded as a kind of the “laboratory of the future.” Or is the Pritzker Architecture Prize more of a patronizing and orientalizing gesture that renders African architecture a curiosity, while the Global North chasteningly points out that it is time to rein in the overly spectacular ambitions of contemporary starchitecture, which has neglected its social role? The posed questions direct the analysis toward Kéré’s architecture being interpreted as a local variant of modernism, and his work as a kind of advocacy. Jyoti Hosagrahar’s helpful concept of Indigenous Modernities is invoked as a medium through which Africa’s emerging and important current of participatory architecture may be viewed from the postcolonial perspective and considered beyond the center – periphery opposition.