FRANCIS KÉRÉ
RADICALLY SIMPLE

The Catalogue

Unlike almost any other architect, Diébédo Francis Kéré (*1965 in Burkina Faso) stands for the association of constructive, social, and cultural aspects of building. He made a name for himself not only with his designs for Christoph Schlingensief’s Opera Village Africa. He has received numerous international awards, primarily for his building projects in his native country of Burkina Faso— including the 2004 Aga Khan Award for Architecture. His structures join his formal training at the Technische Universität Berlin with the traditional building methods of Burkina Faso. In doing so, he places local social and historical needs at the center of his design concepts. The innovative thing about this work is: he relies on the inhabitants. They are trained to become professionals and thus the constructors of their own future. This first monograph on his extensive oeuvre provides unique insight into the creative work of this outstanding architect and renders visible the fact that architecture not only revolves around buildings, but always around people as well.

Exhibition: Architekturmuseum TU München in der Pinakothek der Moderne, 17th November 2016–26th February 2017

The Typography

As body text typeface, I chose my redesigned FF Sizmo.
According to the visual language of Francis Kéré’s architecture, I designed two Display typefaces that were also used for the exhibition design. For these typefaces, I got my inspiration from original shop letterings from Burkina Faso.
Another quote from Burkina Faso based designs are the patterns and borders, I used on the dividing pages between the chapters of the book.

Kommune Stencil Type Specimen, available at Laïc: Type Foundry. > more >

My regards go to the wonderful team of Francis Kéré’s architecture, who made this fantastic project possible.
A big thank you to Andres Lepik, Ayça Beygo, and Marcelo Della Giustina from the Architekturmuseum TU München in der Pinakothek der Moderne!
I’m very grateful for the great support by Heidrun Zimmermann from Hatje Cantz.

Hatje Cantz, 2016
Ed. Andres Lepik, text(s) by Andres Lepik u.a., Ayca Beygo
German, ISBN 978–3 7757–4216 0
English, ISBN 978–3 7757–4217 7
208 pp., 260 ills.
hardcover
24.00 × 28.00 cm