In Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso, the mausoleum for Thomas Sankara has been inaugurated. It pays tribute to the country’s revolutionary former president and twelve officials close to him, all assassinated in 1987 during a coup d’êtat.

The mausoleum is now their final resting place and it marks the end of the first phase of Thomas Ankara Memorial Park, an ambitious urban project covering 14 hectares, planned by Kéré Architecture. The park features an amphitheater, educational facilities, and offices, and over the exact spot of the murders stands a 100-meter tower, whose terrace at 87 meters is a reference to the year of the magnicide.

Inspired by the sun’s course, the mausoleum’s design arranges thirteen tombs concentrically, each illuminated by an opening overhead. In this scheme, which follows the solar path, light is the marker of time and absence. Every tomb stretches on up the wall, turning memory into architecture.

A 34-meter dome crowns the central space. The doors -- oriented east to west, with horizontal louvers – facilitate passive ventilation and natural cooling inside. The building was raised with laterite and bricks of local clay, materials which, besides rooting the project to the geographical context, make for excellent thermal performance in the face of the region’s arid climate.

Fotos: Kéré Architecture