Francis Kéré: Serpentine Pavilion 2017 — “Gathering Form: Making a Building, Building Community”

Author
Jeanne Gang

Editor
Melissa Blanchflower and Joseph Constable

Publication
Francis Kéré: Serpentine Pavilion 2017

Publisher
Serpentine Galleries and Koenig Books

Year
2017

Design
Fraser Muggeridge studio

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In this essay for the publication accompanying Francis Kéré’s Serpentine Pavilion, Jeanne Gang highlights Kéré’s approach to building community through architecture.

“Francis Kéré creates by centering his approach on the question, ‘How will this building be made?’ For him this is not an abstract question but a specific, community-based inquiry into locally available materials, techniques, tools and people—an interrelated set of criteria that can shift over the life of a project. Nested within this investigation is the goal of making a building’s construction a collective enterprise that gathers communities together, strengthening their social bonds and empowering them with new knowledge, skills and confidence.”