Construire la communauté : de nouvelles traditions
Building community : new traditions

Lauréat du Global Award for Sustainable Architecture 2009

D’abord charpentier, Francis Kéré a pu quitter le village de Gando pour étudier l’architecture à l’Université de Berlin grâce à l’ONG allemande BMZ. Il y enseigne maintenant, selon les règles d’un rationalisme régénéré par l’écologie. À Gando, il construit une architecture tout aussi rationnelle et inventive, nourrie de culture globale et d’intelligence des situations.
Car de Berlin à Gando, il n’importe plus rien sans raison. Il utilise lucidement la mondialisation et place désormais sa culture sur le même plan que celle de l’Occident en puisant dans l’expérience africaine enfin reconnue, comme dans l’écologie européenne. Il assemble, tamise ces ressources pour chaque projet, cherche la juste réponse. Cette critique globale des savoirs est neuve. Elle produit une architecture enracinée dans son microcosme et universelle par son message.

Trained as a carpenter, Francis Kéré obtained with the help of BMZ, a German NGO, a scholar ship to study architecture at T.U. in Berlin. He lives between Burkina Faso and Germany.
In Berlin, he teaches his students green architecture. In his village of Gando, he builds amenities and schools, all with the same rationality, economy and sober lines, reflecting the truth of the process and of the resources, considering African knowledge on building as valuable as those coming from Europe.
He doesn’t import eco-construction but transpose the principles: a clever use of globalization. The skills of local masons and metalworkers are employed. Materials found all over Africa are transformed into strong structures, with fine shapes. Francis Kéré believes that stakeholders need to be involved in the development process so that they can appreciate its advantages and drive it forward. “And that is equally true for architecture.”

This documentary is based on the study of the African in world civilization, in particular his little known contributions to the advancement of Eurpe. A major essay on the evolution of the Caucasoid discusses recent scientific discoveries of the African fatherhood of man and the shift towards albinism (dropping of pigmentation) by the Grimaldi African during an ice age (the Wurm Interstadial) in Europe. The debt owed to African and Arab Moors for certain inventions usually credited to the Renaissance is discussed, as well as the much earlier Afro-Egyptian influence on Greek science and philosophy. The book is divided into six parts: The First Europeans: African Presence in the Ancient Mediterranean Isles and Mainland Greece; Africans in the European Religious Hierarchy (madonnas, saints and popes); African Presence in Western Europe; African Presence in Northern Europe; African Presence in Eastern Europe.

playing the Ngombi

Walter Rodney - Crisis in the Periphery: Africa and the Caribbean - NYC - Unknown Date of Lecture