On Thursday I attended the 2012 Innovation Conference, organized by Architectural Record and held appropriately in the McGraw-Hill Auditorium in Midtown Manhattan. After a string of panels that focused on various strands of innovation—research and development, technological tools, design vanguards, supertall buildings—Francis Kéré gave a keynote that was easily the highlight of the day, only partly because his low-tech means of realizing buildings in his native Burkina Faso and other places was in sharp contrast to the goings-on the rest of the day. Kéré was also very personable, humble, honest, and passionate, as the title of this blog post—the first words of his talk—clearly attests. Visit Architectural Record's video page to watch his talk in its entirety.
