With the opening of the new Goethe-Institut in Dakar, international cultural architecture is receiving a trend-setting project. The new building designed by Kéré Architecture marks a historic turning point: for the first time in its more than 75-year history, the Goethe-Institut is realizing a specially planned, tailor-made building – from the initial concept idea to the structural implementation.
Urban setting and spatial mediation
The Goethe-Institut Dakar is located in a mature residential area and deliberately does not act as an iconic solitaire, but as a mediating structure between the public cultural space and the neighborhood context. In the immediate vicinity of the Léopold Sédar Senghor Museum, an ensemble is being created that does not isolate cultural identity, but rather develops it in dialog.
The design by Diébédo Francis Kéré responds to the scale of the surroundings with a low, two-storey cubature. The volumetric design also functions as a buffer zone: while it has a noise-reducing effect on the outside, it creates protected, introverted spaces with a high quality of stay on the inside.
The placement within an existing ensemble of trees is not only motivated by landscape architecture, but also generates a formal guiding idea: the roof landscape abstracts the canopy structure of the vegetationStorage massEnergyBuilding envelopeSolar radiationShadingCross ventilationFacadesZoningFormatsZoneInarchitecture and building services engineering, a zone is an area within a building that requires its own control in terms of heating, air conditioning or ventilation. Zones are often defined according to their use, size or location in order to ensure a tailored supply of energy and air…. supports the low-threshold accessibility of the building.
Second floor – learning and work spaces:
Classrooms and administrative functions are located here. The spatial organization promotes concentrated work, but remains connected to the public areas through visual references and climatic permeability.
Roof – climatic and social level:
The shady roof acts as an overarching architectural bracket and enables additional qualities of stay in the outdoor space.
Architecture as a process of collective negotiation
A key feature of the project is the collaborative planning and construction process. The Goethe-Institut Dakar is not to be understood as a singular authorship, but as the result of a multi-layered dialog between international and local actors.
According to Stefanie Peter, architecture in this context can be read as a “translation achievement” – as a medium that brings together different cultural, technical and social perspectives.
Gesche Joost also emphasizes the importance of the new building as a spatial manifestation of cultural cooperation and as a starting point for new spaces for discourse in West Africa.
A prototype for future cultural buildings
With an area of around 1,800 m², a planning phase from 2018 to 2021 and completion between 2022 and 2026, the Goethe-Institut Dakar is exemplary of a new generation of institutional architecture:
- context-sensitive instead of iconic
- resource-conserving instead of technology-driven
- processual instead of static thinking
The building by Kéré Architecture shows how global institutions can anchor themselves locally without losing their international orientation.
Project data
- Location: Dakar, Senegal
- Architect: Kéré Architecture – Diébédo Francis Kéré
- Typology: Cultural and educational building
- Area: 1,800 m²
- Planning: 2018 – 2021
- Execution: 2022 – 2026
- Status: Completed
