Graphisoft is proud to announce that Diébédo Francis Kéré, architect and educator, has been awarded the 2022 Pritzker Architecture Prize.
The Pritzker
The Pritzker Prize is the architecture industry’s version of a Nobel Prize. Each year it is given out to a living architect for significant achievement in the field. Since 1979, the Pritzker Prize has been awarded to many of the architecture industry’s most innovative, influential, and decorated architects.
Kéré’s practice is based in Berlin, Germany and the architect has worked tirelessly for social justice through design and architecture, often in marginalized countries faced with overwhelming constraints and conditions. His work focuses on education, healthcare centers, and public spaces. And he has achieved impactful results despite limited resources.
The official Pritzker 2022 Jury Citation states, in part, “He knows, from within, that architecture is not about the object but the objective: not the product, but the process. Francis Kéré’s entire body of work shows us the power of materiality rooted in place. His buildings, for and with communities, are directly of those communities—in their making, their materials, their programs, and their unique characters.”
I am hoping to change the paradigm, push people to dream and undergo risk. It is not because you are rich that you should waste material. It is not because you are poor that you should not try to create quality.
“I am hoping to change the paradigm, push people to dream and undergo risk. It is not because you are rich that you should waste material. It is not because you are poor that you should not try to create quality,” says Kéré. “Everyone deserves quality, everyone deserves luxury, and everyone deserves comfort. We are interlinked and concerns in climate, democracy, and scarcity are concerns for us all.”
“The body of work Francis Kéré has created, indeed deserves this prestigious recognition,” said Huw Roberts, Graphisoft CEO. “His work shows that integrating design and social commitment creates great architecture – and that his chosen tool is Archicad, fills us with gratitude and inspires us to continue to innovate so that we can serve him and architects like him everywhere,” he added.
About the Pritzker Architecture Prize
The Pritzker Architecture Prize was established in 1979 by the late Jay A. Pritzker and his wife, Cindy. Its purpose is to honor annually a living architect whose built work demonstrates a combination of those qualities of talent, vision, and commitment, which has produced consistent and significant contributions to humanity and the built environment through the art of architecture.
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