André Ravéreau, born July 29, 1919 in Limoges and died on October 12, 2017 in Aubenas, is a French architect. In 1980, he received the Aga Khan architecture prize. It is raised to the rank of Achir of the Order of National Merit of Algeria in 2012.

He was the pupil of Auguste Perret at the School of Fine Arts in Paris between 1946 and 1950. In 1949, still a student, he went to the M'zab valley, in Algeria. Mozabite architecture, through the harmony it gives off, is decisive in its apprehension of construction; This trip inspires him a real lesson in architecture. "Like everyone, I received the seduction of Ghardaïa before making it the analysis. We have the intuition that things have a balance that is called aesthetics, and that before knowing how it is, a balance. This is the analysis that taught me later, I saw in the M'zab at the same time the rigor I loved in Perret, of which I was the student, and the exhilarating forms that we find in the Corbusier. »»

In 1965, André Ravéreau was approached by the Ministry of Information and Culture of Algeria to become an architect in chief of historic monuments. Located in Ghardaïa, he will obtain the ranking of the Sidi Okba mosque and the city of Ghardaïa to the Algerian Historic Monuments, thus paving the way to the Ghardaïa ranking as a UNESCO World Heritage. In 1970, he created a first workshop in the ministry - the M'ZAB valley study and restoration workshop - which allowed some young architects, who had arisen, to make numerous statements from Mozabites houses. He will not imitate the forms of vernacular architecture but seeks to understand it to better register his achievements in the thickness of a culture.

André Ravéreau created in 1973, using Naït Ali, a senior Algerian civil servant of the Ministry of the Interior, a second workshop, the E.R.S.A.U.U.E, more commonly known as the workshop of Ghardaïa or, a posteriori, the desert workshop. He sees it as the opportunity to offer a different teaching from that he had received in Fine Arts, based on learning a constructive culture by practice, by the site. Many houses were thus restored and some new constructions made including the economic housing of Sidi Abbaz.

In 1975, André Ravéreau settled definitively in France. Helped with his right arm, his manual rockery partner, he writes and published his first book, M'Zab, an architecture lesson. From his Ardèche residence, he continues to design an architecture located. This is how he obtained in 1980 the AGA Khan architecture price for the Mopti health center. Then, in 1983, the urban planning silver medal was awarded to him by the Academy of Architecture for the whole of his work. In 2012, he received the medal of the merit of Algeria for his contribution to the valuation of the heritage.

Subsequently, his work as a C.A.U.E. De Lozère from 1985 to 1993, inspired numerous publications with renewed ambitions to him. Until the age of 98, he tirelessly continued these various works, faithfully illustrated from the photographic funds of Manual Roche, and constantly enriched with new reflections.

André Ravéreau died on October 12, 2017 in Aubenas in Ardèche.