Opening, 'Primary Elements' exhibition about Francis Kéré works
04/10/2018.
ICO Museum [MAD] Spain 03.10.18 > 20.01.19
metalocus, ANA MENÉNDEZ
metalocus, ANA MENÉNDEZ
The most famous African architect's sustainable work arrives at the ICO Museum. The exhibition presents the 'primary elements' of Kéré's work built on a real scale with the same techniques used by the architect.
Francis Kéré in ICO Museum. Photograph by Julio César González
Francis Kéré in ICO Museum. Photograph by Julio César González
Francis Kéré in ICO Museum. Photograph by Julio César González
Francis Kéré in ICO Museum. Photograph by Julio César González
Francis Kéré in ICO Museum. Photograph by Julio César González
Luis Fernández-Galiano, comisioner, Francis Kéré and Gloria Peñafiel, ICO Foundation Director. Francis Kéré in ICO Museum. Photograph by Julio César González
The exhibition on the work of Francis Kéré will be at the ICO Museum in Madrid from October 3, 2018 to January 20, 2019. In it, you can see many of the projects of the Burkinabé architect and even go through a reduced reproduction of the Pavilion of the Serpentine Gallery of 2017.
The exhibition 'Francis Kéré. Primary Elements', has been inaugurated in the ICO Museum. Curated by Luis Fernández-Galiano and organized by the ICO Foundation.
Gloria Peñafiel, director of the ICO Foundation, has affirmed:
The exhibition 'Francis Kéré. Primary Elements', has been inaugurated in the ICO Museum. Curated by Luis Fernández-Galiano and organized by the ICO Foundation.
Gloria Peñafiel, director of the ICO Foundation, has affirmed:
"Francis Kéré is a magnificent architect whose work presents an extreme social burden and a very deep bond with his country. We are very proud to have him here and to show you this exhibition, one of the most ambitious assemblies we have done in the museum."
For his part, Commissioner Luis Fenández-Galiano said:
"Francis Kéré is not here because he is the best African architect, nor because his life has been the embodiment of overcoming and an example for our young people, nor because he has such strong ties narrow with Spain, the fundamental reason is that it makes an architecture based on elementary principles that is universal".
Francis Kéré concluded:
"Architecture is at the service of humanity. Building a building is a team effort. When I raised the school from my village, I implored all the inhabitants. Architecture is also emotion: what you transmit with what you build. And it must be realistic: I use the materials that I have at hand, mud, water, wood. "
About the exhibition
The thesis that structures the entire exhibition relates the work of Kéré with the primary elements of Architecture designed by the German architect and scholar Gottfried Semper in the 19th century: the stereotomic floor, the tectonic roof and the textile wall.
These "primary elements" have been built on a real scale in the ICO Museum with the same techniques used by Kéré in their buildings. The visitor will find a textile wall made with fabrics brought from Burkina Faso; a concrete platform; a wooden platform (reproducing the Louisiana Canopy made by Kéré at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, Denmark, in 2015); a reduced reproduction of the Pavilion of the Serpentine Gallery built in London in 2017; and a wall and an adobe platform built by the students of the "Architecture with Earth" Workshop, which took place in Boceguillas (Segovia), last July, and was specifically organized on the occasion of this exhibition by the ICO Foundation, the Center for Research in Traditional Architecture (CIAT), the School of Architecture of Madrid (ETSAM), the General Foundation of the Polytechnic University of Madrid (UPM) and the City Council of Boceguillas.
In addition, the workspace of the Kéré Architecture studio in Berlin is reproduced, with various samples of construction materials and working models selected from the workshop itself, which are part of the daily work process of the study.
All these elements are structured around an exhibition that covers the architect's life path and where 27 projects and six artistic installations carried out in three different continents can be known in depth.
The thesis that structures the entire exhibition relates the work of Kéré with the primary elements of Architecture designed by the German architect and scholar Gottfried Semper in the 19th century: the stereotomic floor, the tectonic roof and the textile wall.
These "primary elements" have been built on a real scale in the ICO Museum with the same techniques used by Kéré in their buildings. The visitor will find a textile wall made with fabrics brought from Burkina Faso; a concrete platform; a wooden platform (reproducing the Louisiana Canopy made by Kéré at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, Denmark, in 2015); a reduced reproduction of the Pavilion of the Serpentine Gallery built in London in 2017; and a wall and an adobe platform built by the students of the "Architecture with Earth" Workshop, which took place in Boceguillas (Segovia), last July, and was specifically organized on the occasion of this exhibition by the ICO Foundation, the Center for Research in Traditional Architecture (CIAT), the School of Architecture of Madrid (ETSAM), the General Foundation of the Polytechnic University of Madrid (UPM) and the City Council of Boceguillas.
In addition, the workspace of the Kéré Architecture studio in Berlin is reproduced, with various samples of construction materials and working models selected from the workshop itself, which are part of the daily work process of the study.
All these elements are structured around an exhibition that covers the architect's life path and where 27 projects and six artistic installations carried out in three different continents can be known in depth.
More information
Venue
ICO Museum, Madrid
Dates
From October 03, 2018 to January 20, 2019
Curator
Luis Fernández-Galiano
Diébédo Francis Kéré
Diébédo Francis Kéré (b.1965, in Gando, Burkina Faso, west Africa) trained at the Technical University of Berlin in Germany, started his Berlin based practice, Kéré Architecture, in 2005. Kéré Architecture has been recognised nationally and internationally with awards, including the Aga Khan Award for Architecture (2004) for his first building, a primary school in Gando, Burkina Faso; LOCUS Global Award for Sustainable Architecture (2009); Global Holcim Award Gold (2011 and 2012); Green Planet Architects Award (2013); Schelling Architecture Foundation Award (2014); and the Kenneth Hudson Award –European Museum of the Year (2015).
Projects undertaken by Francis Kéré span countries, including Burkina Faso,Mali, China, Mozambique, Kenya, Togo, Sudan, Germany and Switzerland. He has taught internationally, including the Technical University of Berlin, and he has held professorships at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and Accademia di Architettura di Mendriso in Switzerland.
Kéré’s work has recently been the subject of solo exhibitions: Radically Simple at the Architecture Museum, Munich (2016) and The Architecture of Francis Kéré: Building for Community, Philadelphia Museum of Art (2016). His work has also been selected for group exhibitions: Small Scale, Big Change: New Architectures of Social Engagement, Museum of Modern Art, New York (2010) and Sensing Spaces, Royal Academy, London (2014).
Among his main works are the Primary School (2001) and the Library (under construction) of Gando, Burkina Faso; the Health and Social Promotion Center (2014) and the Opera Village (under construction), both in Laongo, Burkina Faso; the Satellite of the Volksbühne Theater at the Tempelhof Airport, in Berlin (temporary installation, 2016); or the Pavilion for the Serpentine Gallery of the year 2017.
LUIS FERNÁNDEZ-GALIANO
Luis Fernández-Galiano (1950) is an architect, professor at the School of Architecture of Madrid’s Universidad Politécnica and editor since 1985 of the journals AV/Arquitectura Viva. Between 1993 and 2006 he was in charge of the weekly architecture page of the newspaper El País, where he now writes in the Op-Ed section.
Member of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts and of the Royal Academy of Doctors, he is an International Fellow of the RIBA, and has been Cullinan Professor at Rice University, Franke Fellow at Yale University, a visiting scholar at the Getty Center of Los Angeles, a visiting critic at Princeton, Harvard and the Berlage Institute, and has given lecture series at the Universidad Menéndez Pelayo and the Fundación March.
He has also chaired the international architecture congresses ‘More for Less’ (2010), ‘The Common’ (2012) and ‘Necessary Architecture’ (2014). President of the jury in the 9th Venice Architecture Biennale, juror of the Mies van der Rohe Award and of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture, he has curated the exhibitions El espacio privado, Extreme Eurasia (in Tokyo and in Madrid), Bucky Fuller & Spaceship Earth and Jean Prouvé: Industrial Beauty (these last two with Norman Foster), as well as Spain mon amour (in the 13th Venice Architecture Biennale and in Madrid), and The Architect is Present.
He has been on the jury of several international competitions in Europe, America and Asia, including those of the National Library of Mexico, the National Art Museum of China, the National Library of Israel and the Noble Qur’an Oasis in Madinah. Among his books are La Quimera Moderna, Fire and Memory, Spain Builds (with New York’s MoMA in its English version, and presented in its Chinese version with symposiums in Shanghai and Beijing) and Atlas, Architectures of the 21st Century, a series of four volumes.
Member of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts and of the Royal Academy of Doctors, he is an International Fellow of the RIBA, and has been Cullinan Professor at Rice University, Franke Fellow at Yale University, a visiting scholar at the Getty Center of Los Angeles, a visiting critic at Princeton, Harvard and the Berlage Institute, and has given lecture series at the Universidad Menéndez Pelayo and the Fundación March.
He has also chaired the international architecture congresses ‘More for Less’ (2010), ‘The Common’ (2012) and ‘Necessary Architecture’ (2014). President of the jury in the 9th Venice Architecture Biennale, juror of the Mies van der Rohe Award and of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture, he has curated the exhibitions El espacio privado, Extreme Eurasia (in Tokyo and in Madrid), Bucky Fuller & Spaceship Earth and Jean Prouvé: Industrial Beauty (these last two with Norman Foster), as well as Spain mon amour (in the 13th Venice Architecture Biennale and in Madrid), and The Architect is Present.
He has been on the jury of several international competitions in Europe, America and Asia, including those of the National Library of Mexico, the National Art Museum of China, the National Library of Israel and the Noble Qur’an Oasis in Madinah. Among his books are La Quimera Moderna, Fire and Memory, Spain Builds (with New York’s MoMA in its English version, and presented in its Chinese version with symposiums in Shanghai and Beijing) and Atlas, Architectures of the 21st Century, a series of four volumes.
Categories
Our selection
