Bâtir ensemble, CILF, 1988 Roger G. Katan is a French-American architect, planner, sculptor, and activist born in Berguent (today's Aïn Bni Mathar), Eastern Morocco, on January 5, 1931.

After graduating from Ecole nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, Katan won a scholarship to MIT in 1960, where he earned a master's degree in Architecture and Urban Design (1961).

Based in East Harlem, he taught architecture and urban planning at Pratt Institute, City College of New York, and Pratt Graduate School of Tropical Architecture for ten years, with one year spent at Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY (in the Political Science Department), practicing and teaching advocacy planning.

In 1964, Katan was already prescribing participation and putting his talent as an architect in the service of the poorest when Paul Davidoff tossed the phrase advocacy planning.

From 1975 to 1999, he was actively involved in humanitarian relief and development as a consultant, mostly in Africa and Latin America, on behalf of the United Nations, the European Union, the World Bank, and the French Technical Cooperation.

Hired by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), Katan monitored the creation of a local microcredit network in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, West Africa, in 1976-78.

Building Together was released in the U.S. by New Village Press in 2014, with two new chapters by Ronald Shiffman, founder of the Pratt Center for Community Development in 1963 and pioneer of advocacy planning.

[6] Katan attended primary school in Berguent (today's Aïn Bni Mathar), Eastern Morocco, near the Algerian border, whose population was then about 800.

Wayne Anderson, the MIT Art historian and critic, wrote about his work: In Katan's most recent compositions, the shapes and colors of the solids intertwine, casting light and colors through matter… These works are inspired by the recent discovery of the elementary particles in the primordial fireball at time zero (the very first moments of the universe), when the infinitely small collided with the infinitely big… The power of changing lights enhances and transforms matter.

First you enjoy a moment of peace and purity, the gentle breeze of colors and matter blowing through your mind… Then total chaos breaks out, fueled by luminous upheavals and apocalyptic visions, slowly rising and receding to finally let life emerge from the symbolic eggshells—and a new order arises.

The changing colors of the LEDs shine through the translucent solids depending on the viewer's frame of mind—and creative remote control.