page_title: Roger Katan
section_title: Consultant in Africa and South America (1976-98)
hierarchical_section_title: Roger Katan / Consultant in Africa and South America (1976-98)
caption_attribution_description: English: Pacific Coast Cluster Homes (Cabanons), Bocana-Buenaventura, Colombia, 1991-93. Français&#160;: Hameau de cabanons écologiques à Bocana-Buenaventura, sur la côte pacifique en Colombie, 1991-1993.
context_page_description: Roger G. Katan is a French-American architect, planner, sculptor, and activist born in Berguent, Eastern Morocco, on January 5, 1931. Based in the United States in the early 1960s, he was an active founder of advocacy planning, participatory democracy applied to urban planning. As a kinetic artist, he collaborated and exhibited with rising figures of postmodern art. After 1975, Katan became involved in humanitarian relief and continued to encourage participatory practices and self-management. His method favors traditional, sustainable agriculture and construction. In 1999 he moved to Sauve, southern France, where he resumed work on kinetic sculpture and publications.
context_section_description: 1976-78: United Nations Development Program (UNDP) missions in Burkina Faso, West Africa. Katan carried out three 4-month missions for UNDP to set up a local microcredit and savings bank. Originally devised as a self-management tool for the Cissin district (20,000 people) in Ouagadougou, it has now become the Réseau National des Caisses Populaires du Burkina, a nationwide network.
  1977: UNDP mission in Benin, West Africa, Nov. 2 to 23.
  1979-80: Two UNDP missions in Mali, West Africa, from Feb. 1979 to March 1980. A 12-month mission to coordinate the displacement of 15 village communities during the construction of a power dam in Sélingué. It took Katan another 4-month mission in Mali to launch a National Construction Standards Institute in Bamako. Katan designed and built the UNDP headquarters in Sélingué using earth and local materials. It served as a model for the rehousing program. Photographs and plans were shown in Paris at the “Architectures de terre” (Earth Architecture) exhibition organized by Jean Dethier at Centre Pompidou in 1981. On this occasion, Katan lectured about earth architecture and his work in Mali.
  1980-99: Missions in South and Central America. Based in Colombia, Katan carried out short missions in Mexico and Chile for the European Union and the French Technical Cooperation.
  1981: During a 3-month mission in Colombia for the Dutch Technical Cooperation, Katan studied the cause of demographic and economic disorders in villages located in three different areas of the Chocó department, on the Pacific Coast. The main cause was the absence of appropriate rural teaching. Schools were based on urban life conditions. Katan returned to Chocó in 1984, invited by the Education Department, UNESCO, and CVC to set up a model school for the Pacific Coast, where rural teaching would help local development.
  1982: Katan developed 3 projects with the French Technical Cooperation in Colombia from May 15 to July 15.
  1982: He designed and built a private residence made of sustainable materials (adobe, straw, bamboo, etc.) in the Andes, an hour's drive from Bogota.
  1983: Katan represented France in a project identification commission for the World Bank's Urban Development program in Bogota, Jan. 5-31.
  1983-84: Katan performed various tasks for the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Technical Cooperation through the Agency for Cooperation and Development and the Inter-Ministerial Cooperation Program REXCOOP to provide technical assistance to the ICT (Instituto de Credito Territorial) mounting a project for 3,600 self-built wooden houses in Tumaco, on the Pacific Coast. Subsequently, he was in charge of organizing the initial phase (250 houses) with participating beneficiaries in the design, construction, and project management. In Feb.-March, Katan launched 3 cooperatives (savings, transportation, consumer goods) with the same people for the French Technical Cooperation.
  1984: Hired by BCH (Banco Central Hipotecario), Katan assessed the social impact of popular housing projects in Cali and Cartagena, defining the type of training required to manage such projects in an urban context.
  1985-86: With the mayor and municipality of Tumaco, he worked on the co-financing of three projects: a self-managed housing cooperative for 200 families in a semi-rural area, a cooperative hotel in Bocagrande, near Tumaco, hiring local people and using sustainable power, with its own local livestock, biogas digesters, vegetable garden, windmill, bungalows, cooperative restaurant, etc., and a multi-purpose cooperative union of oil palm growers.
  1986: Katan set up the self-built cooperative hotel project in Tumaco-Bocagrande. He developed a collaborative conceptual plan and coordinated the construction with the support of the DC-based Inter-American Foundation.
  1987-89: He developed plans and supervised the construction of an International Research Center for Clinical Psychology (6500 sq. feet) in Cali, Colombia, using improved traditional materials (wood, adobe, bamboo). The project was financed by the Danielle Mitterrand Foundation (France
caption: Pacific Coast Cluster Homes (Cabanons), Bocana-Buenaventura, Colombia, 1991-93
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