 Good evening, everyone. It's a real pleasure to welcome you all and it's an especially big pleasure to welcome our lecturer tonight, the inspiring architect, Francis Guerre, who will be giving the inaugural John Forester lecture. The John Forester Fund was created in memory of John Forester, who received his B. Arc degree from Columbia in 1964, and went on to become a practicing architect working on a variety of architectural and interior design projects throughout New York City and the greater New York metro area. This fund honors John Forester's experience at GSAP, during which he benefited enormously from the opportunity to engage and interact with some of the greatest architects of his time. The fund hopes to inspire and continue these important interactions between generations of architects, and I'm so very pleased to have members of Mr. Forester's family join us this evening for this inaugural lecture. Certainly, I could never have hoped for a more appropriately motivating guest speaker to give us this first lecture than Francis Guerre. Today is also the first day of Black History Month, and so it's just wonderful to be able to hear Guerre speak this evening also on this occasion. Like many of you, I'm sure, I've been a great admirer of Guerre's work ever since his seminal first project, the 2004 Gando Primary School in Burkina Faso, which he designed, raised funds for and realized in collaboration with the residents of his hometown while still a student at the Technical University of Berlin. The school was awarded the prestigious Aga Khan Award for architecture, garnering him critical acclaim from the outset of his career. In 2005, Guerre founded his architecture practice, Guerre architecture GMBH, as well as the Guerre Foundation, a nonprofit organization that pursues projects in Gando. With this very first project, Guerre set the tone for the tenor and uniqueness of his practice, one that weaves together a capacity to produce undeniably elegant and sophisticated architecture with an ability to produce spaces that are also accessible, warm and inviting, able to hold the everyday life of their communities. Guerre's buildings are not, quote unquote, sustainable architecture with bells and whistles, or poster children for, quote, mud architecture. They are instead incredible pieces of infrastructures which are anchored in place through materiality, structures that are able to harness and mobilize the movements of light, air and water, and projects that offer fresh and original playfulness together with disciplinary resonances in their expression. In recently reading, I would say indulging in Guerre's published monograph, Radically Simple, I was struck by the power and consistency of Guerre's body of work with many projects today spanning the African continent and beyond. The book exudes an overwhelming feeling that if there is still the possibility of an avant-garde today, it would be in Africa, where Guerre's body of work is moving the continent and indeed all of our architectural imaginations to a scope far beyond the west, beyond paternalism, beyond cliches and reductive oppositions to propose instead work that is at once visionary and grounded, literally grounded in the power of the communities, contexts and histories that they serve and advance. Again, I'm so delighted to have you with us tonight, Francis, and I want to invite everyone to join me in welcoming you so warmly this evening. So now we have to work a little bit. I need to be guided because I'm standing in the place where I really have a lot of problems and I had an electricity shortage now. Let's keep fingers crossed, guys, I'm so sorry. Oh, it's an honor to have you. This is part of my reality to everybody, you know, and that's why sometimes I attempt to say in the west we are spoiled, we don't know what we have really. So, okay, again, I left Ivan, I drove like five hours for 150 km, I needed four hours to arrive here, and I'm still struggling. Just to be able with you at the same time keep calling the driver to know if Ivan is safe, because, you know, Brooklyn of us is going through terrorism, but this is not the issue. We do this because I have a great passion for the architecture. Just yesterday, this picture that you can see, I have visited it with Ivan. And by the way, greetings from Ivan, who is being touring with me, this incredible place, checking things that I have been talking about it to him since many, many years. Can you see me? Yep, we can see you and we can hear you. Okay, great. Please tell me if you don't see me. So, so that I'm sure. Okay, greetings from Ivan. So, because I am in the US, I would love to talk about project that I'm doing now in the US. You know, the island pavilion, you know, for me to be connected and share the work with very, you know, great inspiring and visionary schools like yours. There are two ways to try to show the best part of, you know, trying to show the project that are moving me and where I was able to, to challenge just to create something that was almost impossible. This is the silent pavilion in Montana. At the side of the tip of rice at center. When I was commissioned, I wanted to go back to Burkina Faso, and then learn from the tradition and be able to design the pavilion. Katie and Peter, the maker of the tip of rice at center, asked me to create a sort of gathering space, a sort of pavilion in the center where people can come and meet and rest. So the Tuguna was an inspiration for that purpose. The Tuguna is, let's say a landmark in the Dogon land. Actually, I was planning to go there with even bound to explore but at the moment this is impossible, impossible, because this region is suffering from a cultural terror attack. But the Tuguna is a symbol of freedom of peace, you know, the, the, the Tuguna is designed the way that it forced people to enter, not standing. So it taking away aggressive, aggressivity within the community. So by sitting, you cannot be aggressive. So I wanted to use the symbol that I'm learning from a culture to the to to Montana and design this pavilion. And so dear student, I am doing like you, your teachers, I am trying always to put my ideas in catches. This is a sketch that we did. And I also do like you may be doing renderings. But you will see later, I do a lot of mockup. Really, real mockup. Here is the render, of course. When I was in Montana, I was impressed. Really, coming from, from the Sahara trees are something for me so important, so meaningful, the most important things in nature or in human life. When I came to Montana, I saw this debt for us, and I was very impressed. So talking to the client, there was an idea to use debt for us and to give it a new life. So we went collecting a lot of wood. At the end, we discover that there is a lot of wood in Montana that is just used for to burn or to use for other proposed then construction. And I asked if we could get enough from them to design, to build the pavilion. And here we got them. And here, what we did is try to do like I will do in Burkina, taking the skin of the wood with the very, you see, very simple tool and that in the US. You know, Montana is a very difficult area. It has the very strong summer, but also a strong hard winter. So the challenge was how do you build in a given schedule to create a pavilion during wintertime and to build it to install it to be ready to open in summer. We went up to create bundles to create components that we could use that we could build and then later transport to the site and install. Here Nina, a team member that went to me to try and check the seatings element that we have been creating with the company builder in Montana. So Chris is his name. So this is what we was doing in his workshop what he did. He was incredibly has a lot of tools and he a very quick that is the pavilion you could see now in reality. And, I mean, I don't want to say that there is a connection to the landscape to this vast monumental landscape, but you see, that is what I tried to do with this design, not to mimic, but to build a sort of little space within this big landscape to attract people to rest. And so it looked like this in wintertime being part of the landscape. So in this beautiful end of summer is also react beautifully to the nature. Another project that I was happy to be to be to do is Coachella. Honestly, you guys in the US you may laugh about me, but I have to say until that I didn't know what is Coachella. Really, if you ask me I would say is a Mexican drink or something very different. However, I didn't pay much attention because I'm always busy trying to push the teams I'm doing in Africa that sometimes you may miss a very important partner. Here, in this case, I have a daughter, Josephine, who sometimes came to the office to check and mostly also to take care of her daddy that is apparently for her working a lot or traveling a lot. And she came across the name Coachella and she just told me, daddy, and now that you're refusing to do a lot of things because you have, you know, you have no time or you don't want to do too much things. But Coachella is cool. You should do it. So I start to explore what is Coachella. And I discovered this wonderful gathering. This great meeting in the US where young people come to listen to music, music. But I met also the maker, Paul. Paul Chalet just really decided to travel to me to Burkina Faso even when it was the time of terrorism. And he traveled for the first time to Africa and he told me, you know, I have this festival that is very successful, you know, and we want to use this opportunity to promote architecture and art. Would you create, you know, a structure that serves as orientation and recreation place for our festival visitors? I said, well, I will. And this is the result. Okay. Can you see the group of three people on the very left, the low left side, there is red and green. This is not part of the pavilion. I had to do this because I have to tell you, these young people were so free, but some of the pictures are too free to be showing. That's why I tried to dress them afterward. But you know, it was so open, so great, but too much free body, however, to be showing in a lecture. But that's why I dressed them a little bit. So the inspiration here was the Baobab in West Africa and other places also. Baobab are really landmark in the landscape. You will see them very big, very giant. And in some, you have openings, the trunk are hollow, you know, and then I wanted to just use these to create big Baobab during the festival. And as an architect, you know, it's not to build and construct a Baobab. It is just an inspiration. So I went to make sketches, you know, mimicking two mass sketches, how these Baobab looks hollow inside. How you create something that is giant, that can be seen from far, but then also be able, capable of providing shade and then place for visitors. And as I told you, we're doing a lot of more camps, really, a lot, a lot to explore. So the idea and then to make sure that you know what you want to do and what you are able to do before you convince the client to do so. Here Ismael sitting with more camps. And this is the result, really. So here we were not really allowed to fly and take some pictures with the drone because of privacy, but you can imagine how long the shadows are just rising and inviting the visitor just to gather to sit and rest. And at night was like a beacon. So playing the role of orientation pieces, you know. And here, what I like in this picture is this young, willing to become a cowboy, looking to this giant structure, this giant Baobab, that are named together with the people from Coachella, Sarabaleke. Sarabaleke is in Marmara language, a house of celebration, a festival, you know. So this young visitor looking to design Baobab, I hope he will be inspired by this structure. And then this structure, I tell you very clearly, it is simply plywood, steel, very thin steel and nile, not more than that, really. And color, of course, and a lot of color. And color for a festival, for me, is like a signal of celebration. And inside is very simple, really simple structure. You rotate it, you use this triangle element and you can create a shape like this. And from far, you could see it because the festival area is complicated to be seen, but with these towers, you have a quite orientation. And then you will see people coming together. And for me, I was able to just see that in the US, there is no big difference between the people. You know, we are looking all for something that can inspire us, that can serve us, you know, like these people, you know, benefiting from the shade and the canopy of this big Baobab. And then the singer, Ariana Grande, standing in where my structure is a coulisse, like before a theater, you know, and then singing. And then before I realized, I was surprised to see a lot of posts on Instagram. And my daughter is being collecting all of these. And then one day she told, Josephine told me, Daddy, there is a lot of pictures of the Baobabs on Instagram. But nowhere, no one can see that it's you that did it. I said, don't worry. The most important thing, people enjoy it. That is about it. And you know, they will find me if they love what I do. If people that are designed for a happy, for sure, meaning will come. Okay. Now, for the most public, I have been visible because of the serpentine pavilion. Very quick. Hans Ulrich wrote me a letter inviting me to submit a proposal for the serpentine pavilion. I have to honestly tell you, I never count myself. I never saw myself in the, you know, in the level of serpentine pavilions. Really, honestly. So that was something out of my reach. So I ignore the letter and I fly to Burkina Faso to keep pushing my people to create structures. And Adriana, that was that time from Chicago, that was that time from coaching and working with me in the office, just called me and say, Francis, Hans Ulrich, just called here and saying why you're not reacting to his invitation is really serious. So, but honestly, I thought it was a joke, you know, so I came back and decided to say if they invited me to do something for the serpentine. I mean, they're inviting me Francis K. Ray, you know, and I said, maybe I have to take to stay true to myself and give something, something that I know. I wanted to create a canopy, you know, a big tree, you know, and I start to talk about community. And then, at the end of the week, I send them this kind of ideas that are hard. And I was surprised that I like these ideas, the idea that I had. So, so came it that we have to design the serpentine pavilion. The inspiration is trees, but also the historic pattern of the brickwork at the serpentine. So, the king's in garden for of the serpentine galleries inspired me a lot. But we couldn't build with brick. As you know, to build in London is very expensive, but to build in the king's in gardens is even much more complicated. What you have to do is a lot. So, we build in my office a lot of mockups to make sure we know what we wanted before we convinced the client to invest in wood that we wanted to use. And as you can see here, we wanted to use wood to create this big tree. And as in Gando, we made like many, many components, like you can see. And then we there was installed. And this is the result that you can see. So, is a big a giant tree. Let me say is a gathering space for the community. That was my idea. And then I could go. I really saw people sitting and then talking to each other. This is what I want to do to get people get connected. And, you know, you came and you see people talking to each other. And that was for me. Also, again, a reason to say, if I learn from my culture from a tradition, I can create something in the West that may be seen as a contribution to architecture. And that was it. It looks, I wanted it to be light and blue, because blue is my favorite culture, a color. In my culture, in my culture, blue is so important. A young man, I will say a young man, because there's a man girl has other color for young men. The first date for you is to dress blue. If you wear blue, you go through the landscape to go where your, your, your lover's one is not your, your, your favorite is leaving. And everyone will see you to the landscape walking. And then now there is someone dating this girl. So you better be careful. And so that's why I wanted for the first time to have the chance to manifest my architecture in London. I wanted to dress this pavilion with my love, my best color, my favorite color. And that is it. So dear student, ladies and gentlemen, dear visitor, dear family of the John Foster, I want to foundation. I wanted to tell you how, how I started to do architecture. This that you see in front of you is the compound where I was born. You know, I was born in the traditional compound in, in Burkina Faso, in the village called Gando. I grew up in a place seeing architecture being considered as something big, something from corporation, from government. No one could touch. It was far off out of reach. And then I got a scholarship to go to Germany, but without school education, I will never had the chance to do that. And this is normally how school looks like in Burkina Faso. I wanted to make things better and learning from my tradition, how people come together to do communal work. Like here, this is not in Burkina Faso. It is here they repair a mosque in Mali. The community come together and then fix the mosque. So I wanted to learn from that and build a school in my home village. So this is already by the next school, the school extension. I get the community together and say we have rocks. Let's collect these rocks and create the foundation so we save money. That's not what we did. Let's use clay to build walls, but to convince my people to accept this technology using clay because they know it. And clay is being seen in my country as poor people construction material. So they rejected it. And they said, you know, a school is something from France, something European. They made out of concrete and glass. You know, this is the expectation of the people. But then to convince them, I came up and I discovered this technology called low cost technology. It is like compact clay bricks. It is clay that has been mixed with water and cement, a percentage of cement. So with this way you make the bricks regular. And then my people was saying, wow, that is technology. This is something new. And so we went to build a first school completely out of mud. I was from Gando, really. If one day you visit my village, you will see the quarry where we got the clay. And then we use rebars to make the roof stop because I have not a lot of money. And rebars was everywhere available that time. So I could use it and then to create the roof structure. And we use it as a ceiling, a massive ceiling out of the same bricks laid over rebars. The element that you see is our rebars. So a light hanging roof. And so this is left, you know, normally how a classroom looked like when I grew up. And then the one that I have created. So you see the difference in the two. It's like day and night. And that was a successful experience. How we did. I did very simple drawings because, you know, in my place, people don't didn't know about architecture because I told you it's something related to big corporation. And here you made very simple drawings to explain people how it's work. And I can tell you the building, the school that we did is still like at the beginning is looked the same. So people are proud about it because normally school building, government building, no one take care of them. So I build the school the way that is not breaking apart. And it is quite successful. How we did it. How I could gain the community to participate. I was making big models. Like here, a vault to, you know, hear an arc, but to make a big vault, you try this arc out of clay bricks. And then I climb in the middle with the cap is me showing my people don't worry, it will work, explaining them what is technology, how is engineering, you know. And so this way, we could just build this is already the extension building that you can see like a wall. And then, again, roof structure out of rebars and the roof skin out of metal sheet. And so you can see how it's looked like. Inside the vault where I have openings to allow the hot air to circulate, you know, venturi system to have the heaviest air state remain on the ground while the hot air is light and escaping out of these openings. Very simple trick. Together with the windows that you can see La Mela windows, we created cross ventilation. And so you create cool places for the teachers and kids. We have been with this way. We have being very successful. And then more and more people start to ask me to do to help them to do their projects. So I will quickly talk. I am in a rush and dear student dear family of the of Columbia, Columbia University. This is another reality, you know, and I can't promise you as soon as things are okay. I will come to your school in prison to meet all of you. But this, what is going is really my reality is not just that you are in a place where everything is correct now with digitalization is great, but you know, if you don't have power to have internet. It won't work. Okay, very quick level level is a clinic that we've been able to do and to build. And then we start to do it in the same way. This is the clinic today that you can see. I start to build it for six years ago. And this puzzle never had enough money. So we started to build the first couple of structures. And then in this picture, what I want you to see, you will see that our side is the only green area in the entire city. This is a health care center. And this picture that I'm able to show you today was taking this morning by even bar. Who traveled with me the whole night from you also about eight hours to cross to then or to go to level. And then we could just have this picture. This is the clinic today. And you know, we use clay to do it. And for me, this project is so meaningful because in Bukina Faso health care center are connected to that and dirt. So normally you go in the hospital when you have no alternative when they push you to go. Mostly it is too late for people and also some you go sometime there and you go back home sick. And this is reality still today, you know, in these in these 21st century where we're living with fast internet. But here, for me, it was great to be able to create a structure like this out of clay, out of clay. While people getting fix inside, the kids are playing outside, you know, the kids are playing outside. Like you can see in place when normally people don't go. And our structure was so successful that many doctors was volunteering to go and work there from Germany, Switzerland and Austria. And so my friend, this doctor that now has become my friend because of this work, asked me to design doctor housing, you know, because there was no hotel in the area. So people can come and stay there and help provide. So, you know, their, their, their skills and use it to treat the people. And I went again to be inspired by the tradition, how we build housing in Burkina look like this. Either cylinder or a box, you know, and then from that we create a sort of little compound for the for the doctors. That is the result today from the backside, you have a garden that is still growing, growing. And this is inside, very simple. He had the idea was to try to build a small house, you know, mimicking the size of the, the housing of the local people, with the idea that people can, you know, copy, you know, this way of building to improve their, their homes. That was the idea. That was the size. And yesterday night, myself, I spent the night in this, this is my place. My, my suitcase is even not open, you know, and so I just arrived, I saw it, I was so happy that I could spend night in the house that I have designed a couple of years ago. And then so even even had another house, and it looked very simple in this insight, very, very simple. But it is luxury in Burkina Faso, you know, in the little house where you have a shower and a toilet in my country is even today, a big, big luxury. And I could achieve this even using clay bricks, you know, a construction material that was used that has been seen as poor people construction material. So in the front, you see a sort of ventilation system to talk about these today would go far, and then seeing the electricity situation we have. It will not work. I hope we could do this another time. Another project that I'm doing is called Lise Chorgue. It was just in high school. And now you see a put Lise Chorgue and be at the Burkina Institute of Technology. Now in the same site, this client come to tell me, you know, my, I am me and my wife. We were lucky enough to earn money, and we want to give something back. We want to create a high school in honor of his brother that passed away to an accident in the US. So his nickname was Chorgue. So we created this structure, and later they wanted to create an idea in the image of MIT, you know, but I will say you more later. This is the site when I started to construct. And this is what was the site in the meantime. And now this is the site. Like you can see, I go back expressly to show you how things are growing fast in Burkina Faso. So it's giving you, when they're talking about population growth, it is about how people come to city and to settle around structures. I can tell you, in 20 years of time, this will be a city center. So that's what we have created. For the, for the high school, I wanted to create a compound like structure that will create a code year to protect the student during the day from the element. And also I wanted to increase my ventilation systems and adding a tower, a wind tower. And I wanted to use this time laterite. Laterite is also it really a construction material in Burkina Faso, but also neglected more and more because people think it is for poor people. What I wanted to use them, and to give them to get them be accepted, we cut them with the machine with the cutting they become regular. And with these, it has become a modern construction material. If you pay attention to this picture, you will see kids standing and watching what is happening. I can't tell you, sometime when we work with Bill, it is like a big theater. It is like a big performance, you know, the community come to watch. So another element we wanted to add is eucalyptus wood. Eucalyptus wood is an important space here. But the quality that it has is if you cut it and in the ground, you really cut it, it is pricing, you know, you have more finger growing out. And they are so straight that people start to use them for scaffolding for to burn. And I decided to use them, introduce them to architecture, to create structure with them, to create a very solid with them, a skin to protect buildings. So, and we decided to get women from the community be part of the work. This is normally my work. The community is participating. Here you have women sending the wood, almost like a meditation, but in this way they also earn money. But in this way also, the project that we are creating become part of the community. It is creating an identity. People know how the building was made and they have been part of the building, but they also earn money out of it to feed their family. Not just the boys, but also the girls here to show you again the towers. This project alone could be a lecture, but I wanted to give you an overview, since I have the honor to speak in the honor of a great architect, you know. Here is the high school like it is very quick. I will talk more about the new ones, the BAT then the high school, and you see the courtyard, how it is, how the kids can be inside. And then in the backside, we have sittings. They can sit. You could see nicely the wood that we have been using to create a sort of bristle. And inside the classroom are bright. Again, here you see openings on the top. So the, you know, let's say the BAT, the Institute of Technology. In the front, you see it. No, in the background, you see the high school and you see a water tower, a sort of energy tower, a called power house to sort of the two structure and to connect them in terms of architecture, but also in terms of functionality. And then the technology for the BAT, because it's a technology center, I wanted to use clay in a different way to pull clay like you will do with concrete. And at four, you made many forms to do many tests. And then because the client was not sure, the client wanted first to have just one classroom. And then we had a little discussion where I said, you know, if you want to just do create something you came with a big name like Pulkina Institute of Technology, you want to create just one classroom. What is the meaning of that pushing me to go and fight and just create a little class, a little box in the desert and then call it innovation. What is the innovation in that, you know, we end up coming to an agreement to create a form like you can see. And with this form, we can't pull one classroom in one time. And so the more money he get, we keep pulling classrooms. So the more students are coming, we keep pulling classrooms. So, and so you can see how the structure is growing. And actually, this is what we have now on the site. And then you see the tower where we have also have classes and meetings. And if you approach the structure from one side, it is open to the east and to the south, it's protected with sun shading wood element. So if you can, you see that is live inside. And then you start to approach the structure here from far you see the ventilation elements that we wanted to add different to the high school. We designed them crossing the buildings. And inside you have this picture where the student just arrived parking their motorbike transportation system is an individual system here. People use bikes bicycles or motorbike like these ones. And then that is how you enter the BAT. And inside, you have a very open a courtyard where everyone can stay where everyone can be the student. It's very warm, very welcoming and inspiring. I have to say at the same time. I just show two days ago I went inside with even that way I got all of these pictures that we had to put them. And what is nice to see after class you will see the student playing with the with the others younger student from the high school. And at night, you have light in the in this area and light is so important. Now, one of the reasons I have relied what why why I'm doing the work I'm doing is to bring knowledge to my people. First I started with Gando, and then I came to be able to do many, many projects in many places. And I realized that in Kinna Faso is still more focused here. I realized also that education is like light like this, what you can see here in the night, you know, hope, you know. So, because what I have been seeing over decade during my work, so let's say during my work, I have always been facing this discussion about who is the best partner for Africa. Ladies and gentlemen, I don't know. Today, some voices are saying China has an advantage. You know, in the competition on who will better help and work with Africa. I don't know what, but here, dear community from Columbia when I started when I did my first lecture in your place. Let's say I was working with simply my relatives from my village brothers and sisters and cousins. Nowadays, I have this big structure working with me very big group of people. And if you are the women, I can tell you I have more than 300 or 400 people sometime that are working and earning money. You know, you're keeping these young people from the risk to take a boat and go to Europe to the West to America, you know. And today's you know what happening with populism. So people just use the other people looking for better opportunities to do, you know, to oppose people by the way. So what people are looking is just to for opportunity to lead a simple and better life. Look at what I'm doing now with my work, you know, here. We're trying to create a water basin, you know, huge people just dig and we construct this is in the site of the BIT and the high school. And you see there is the inside you don't see it from outside. We have now better pictures things to even but he's still traveling. We couldn't show you better. But what I'm showing you is not better pictures is about content. You know, with these you can store water. You can use these water to grow tree. I am rushing because apparently the shorter the shortest the cutoff of the electricity is coming periodically. I fear it may come from that way I'm rushing. Okay, sorry for that. But you see what I want to do. I'm using this water to grow trees, you know, to go trees. The same like we're building step by step classes. And you see the tree are creating shadow for my people. Maybe with my architecture, I am contributing to bring my people to the position to not see things like big and for cooperation. But it is our concern. This is why that what motivated me to do what I'm doing. You know, you see these young people, those kids kids are now in the BIT learning, you know. And so, you know, New York has been built with people, you know, and what I really want in my work. I want my people to be inspired to build their own future. I want people like you guys to see that I'm considering what I'm doing as soon as important as the same way New York has been built. You may laugh, but you know, a little school in Gando is in the eyes of my community. The same that so how they build a high rise in New York, maybe for you, you know, very inspiring. So thank you very much for your attention. And I'm sorry, sorry for that. But normally, sorry, dear family of my favorite great architect, I'm so sorry that it has to be like this. But I am working under these conditions. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you for an amazing lecture, please. There is absolutely no reason to be sorry on the contrary, it is really our honor to have you present and it's so important and meaningful at this moment to have you speak and as I mentioned at some point, you know, in the West, we, we take things for granted and so I think the context of this lecture is also shining a light on the importance of not taking things for granted and the kind of, you know, incredible commitment and resilience that architecture takes and your engagement is just truly just inspiring at this moment for all of us. So thank you, please. Don't don't apologize. I, I think like they do so here from 11, everyone is sleeping from midnight. You know, the government is just doing cottage, they just cat and cat. And now we, we getting I have people trying to convince people to just give us and it's always a room running sorry really sorry for that. But you know, most of the work if I see someone in the West excited to tell me I went and I made very fast I'm looking and I'm surprised and say wow, you may be lucky to have been able to build so fast. You see what it, what it costs, you know, I have to tell you that until a given time, my even little daughter was hiding in my passport, you know, because I have to go you know, have to go and build and she didn't couldn't see me you know, and but that is the result I'm happy to be able to be invited. I do lecture in memory of a great person like foster was you know, and then for Columbia. Sorry. And we are just so thrilled. I wanted to use this short time of questions and response to give you the opportunity. You know, at some point you said that this this project could could be an entire lecture. You know, I was particularly curious, you know, your, of course the work really starts with materiality and and to process and so I wondered if you would share a little bit with us about the process and the relationship between what you draw and how you build and how you scale up the work. So much so that the buildings seem to grow even as the school is growing. Maybe a window onto your process would be would be wonderful. No, basically when I arrive in the site. I'm trying to explore what is available. So, and also the, you know, the craftsmanship on site and the availability of craftsmanship. I have a big team supporting me to source out. If we got a cut, it's sure that after two minutes I may come again. Sorry, because that is important to me to let you know that I will come. We're here. And then that's what we do. And now I'm really it's like team and capacity building. That is what is important today for me to be able to keep doing if I'm not there and then to travel to the West to share. Normally, digital would have been a great idea. You know, because if we can't share like this from far is good but you see that we even here we don't have the access. So, again, the material materiality. It is, you know, people have learned by experience that some materials and use in the construction building requires regular maintenance. And it costs a lot of work. And so they simply rejected it and say is poor people material. They're looking for permanent construction materials. And then modern ones do this is concrete. This is cement. You know, this is an, and that, etc. and glass, etc. etc. So I'm trying to convince them that if we want to have a, that play can be as shown as a competitive material like the other materials, if you do it properly. So I have to go through education through experimentation and to demonstrate and I'm demonstrating a lot. I'm doing mock up really one to one mock up to convince my people that it worked before we go and do and to scale up. It depends on what what you mean scaling up. You mean spreading the idea. I meant it was interesting when you mentioned the the BIT that the school is you're adding classrooms even even. Yeah, the site is empty. And as shown as the demand is big, they just say, okay, build two classes like to like now we have other two tutorials, one for 200 kids and one for 100 kids. And that, you know, that what we I went to visit yesterday with even and then this is one of the pictures you have seeing school. Almost every year I'm adding for this to this campus, a new classroom and the demand is big, you know, if they're talking guys if you're telling you about about growing population is about a big demand on classrooms and schools need to be created. And then, and in every part of the cities that are either on the countryside or even in cities, you need place you need space for kids to be educated. So in this project, we keep adding classrooms on in Gando. I didn't talk about candle yet, you know, candle is growing now I'm building one of my biggest project a high school. It is it will be completed by the end of this year, thanks to the generous support of the Sydney if friend Frank Foundation, you American are doing good you support in Europe that think the state should do, but in the US you have that so they supported me to build a high school. And this, this family is at the maker of the of the tip of the rice at center, where I built this pavilion. They said, you know, you learn from your country from your culture to create for us this pavilion, we want to support you to make your dream to create something on honor of your papa, your daddy happened, we support you to build this high school, it is growing. And it you guys didn't be ready to send the student with me as soon we overcome terrorism. Okay, there will be a man that will see the material we're using and the enthusiasm of the people, the women, how they show you how to form things, you know, and then how we send this wood and everyone want to be part of it. You know, you know, of the process, you know. So I want to make sure I give a little time, you know, I know that time is short, but I was curious. You have such a privileged perspective going back and forth now with, you know, working in the in the US at times with the pavilions and London and then back in Burkina Faso and you know, how did you feel about working in the US or working Coachella or at the serpentine compared to what you're describing with both the difficulty but also pleasure I was curious about the, you know, the perspective of kind of these two. Actually, actually, you go, you go, you're going to be surprised. And because of, you know, of abundance, if you do something in the West, you have everything you have skill labor, you have some time the money, you know, and then, you know, the technology is available. What is missing is the flexibility to do more except if you're working with people from the tip of the rice or Coachella or the serpentine that give you complete freedom to create, you know, but then, if you do something different regulations, you know, I have now two to three project in Germany. I am going through the experience of what other architect are going through in the West. But I mean, it is a different experience to work in the West, but very nice. I mean, in, you know, in, if I do in Burkina, I feel that is a community event, you know, many, many people are participating. And often in the West, except to this, the pavilion we have been doing, you have to be really involved. Really, because for those clients, also my way to work was part of it, like the tip of rice center pavilion. But normally, you know, it's it's easier in the West because you know, you have everything. In some ways, I'm going to, you know, make sure we don't keep you too long. I know it's late and difficult, but I will try to have a few answers from a few just Thank you so much for an inspirational lecture. I was wondering if you have come across Hassan Fatih's work. If so, would love to hear your thoughts on his architecture. Yeah. Okay, actually, I have been asked about Louise Galliano is the editor in chief of architecture a Viva to write a couple of words for an edition someone in Spain is is is trying to publish the work of Hassan Fatih. Right now, even right now, we right now, you know, I can tell you that is only one architecture magazine in Africa, it was in South Africa, and I found out that it was interrupted to appear two years ago. So, in this way, you don't learn from the continent. You know, and I have to tell you my own work has been known in my village and in the town where I was born before getting down in Africa. But then it has been known really broadly in the West before it's coming back. So this situation is making so that we don't have really access to the work of leading of of visionary architect that has some party has been, of course, I know his work. And of course, I admire his courage to step and just go another way as to just copy other typologies, but my own work is very different. So the approach is, of course, trying to deal with community that how I feel is very different. I would say Hassan Fatih has his time and it is a great inspiration, a pioneer in trying to do things differently than other people used to do in the continent. I admire a lot. I'm doing it differently. I'm using rebars. I'm using clay in another word, you know. I don't want to keep you struggling to come back too much. So I want to maybe ask one last very nice. Can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you. I'll ask one last question that I think summarizes the general feeling that the audience has. Thank you for a wonderful insight into your work. It is a pleasure to see that you want to accomplish so much in your home country as well as the world. What can we do to help you? Keep being resilient. Keep giving you as teacher, as a person in the decision position, allow the student to discover the other world then their own because it will bring us in the position to much more appreciate what we have. Really, often really people in the West don't know what privilege they are in. I don't want to talk too much while I'm talking to you. I'm trying to protect, to kick out mosquitoes, honestly. And while talking to you now, I am afraid if I catch malaria in three days, I may go and measure my temperature and think I have corona, I will not be able to travel. And also what I want to say is you can help me to just push the young people to understand that we are connected. And then what we can do is to know that together we can make our world better. Okay, do you have a part of the world where you have a privilege to be born in a great place where you have peace and freedom? If you are actually like me doing yesterday, struggling, check in pool, check in level, is there access to internet? I want to accept the invitation of this great educator to give a lecture at Columbia in honor of this great, great, great architect. And then you struggle, you come. And then what you can say is, let us together fight for, use our profession to create, to inspire and serve people, to create and serve humanity. That's what we do. This is the way you can help me. The better the world is, the better I am. That is it. And connect, connect and keep pushing. Keep saying to the student that is also another world. And then it's not like just we. There is more people looking to us. Thank you so much, Francis. This has been an incredible lecture. I memorable for the history books. So really delighted. Oh, yes. Trust me. This is very special. And it comes at a very special time. So I'm really grateful for your time, your thoughts. Just the work is absolutely stunning. And, you know, one way or another. Hopefully, of course, we will stay connected virtually, but I hope that in the future we connect at some point in person and have the pleasure either to come to see you, or for you to come back and to visit us as well. So thank you, Francis. Thank you so much. Thank you. It was really wonderful. Thank you. Okay. Bye everyone. We made it. Of course we made it. Of course we made it. Thank you so much. Okay.