Shigeru Ban will receive the 2014 Pritzker Architecture Prize. Tom Pritzker, Chairman and President of The Hyatt Foundation, which sponsors the prize, made the announcement on Monday.
Shigeru Ban, a Tokyo-born, 56-year-old architect with offices in Tokyo, Paris, and New York, is rare in the field of architecture. He designs elegant, innovative work for private clients, and uses the same inventive and resourceful design approach for his extensive humanitarian efforts.
For 22 years Ban has traveled to sites of natural and man-made disasters around the world, to work with local citizens, volunteers, and students, to design and construct simple, dignified, low-cost, recyclable shelters and community buildings for the disaster victims.
“Receiving this prize is a great honor, and with it, I must be careful," said Shigeu Ban. "I must continue to listen to the people I work for, in my private residential commissions and in my disaster relief work. I see this prize as encouragement for me to keep doing what I am doing – not to change what I am doing, but to grow."
Centre Pompidou-Metz, 2010, France; Photo by Didier Boy de la Tour
In all parts of his practice, Ban finds a wide variety of design solutions, often based around structure, materials, view, natural ventilation, and light, and a drive to make comfortable places for the people who use them.
From private residences and corporate headquarters, to museums, concert halls and other civic buildings, Ban is known for the originality, economy, and ingeniousness of his works, which do not rely on today’s common high-tech solutions.
The Swiss media company Tamedia asked Ban to create pleasant spaces for their employees. He responded by designing a seven-story headquarters with the main structural system entirely in timber. The wooden beams interlock, requiring no metal joints.
Tamedia Building, 2013, Zurich, Switzerland; Photo by Shigeru Ban Architects Europe
For the Centre Pompidou-Metz, in France, Ban designed an airy, undulating latticework of wooden strips to form the roof, which covers the complex museum program underneath and creates an open and accessible public plaza.
To construct his disaster relief shelters, Ban often employs recyclable cardboard paper tubes for columns, walls, and beams, as they are locally available, inexpensive, easy to transport, mount and dismantle, and they can be water- and fire-proofed, and recycled. He says that his Japanese upbringing helps account for his wish to waste no materials.
As a boy, Shigeru Ban observed traditional Japanese carpenters working at his parents’ house and to him their tools, the construction, and the smells of wood were magic. He would save cast aside pieces of wood and build small models with them. He wanted to become a carpenter. But at age eleven, his teacher asked the class to design a simple house and Ban’s was displayed in the school as the best. Since then, to be an architect was his dream.
Ban’s humanitarian work began in response to the 1994 conflict in Rwanda, which threw millions of people into tragic living conditions. Ban proposed paper-tube shelters to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and they hired him as a consultant.
Cardboard Cathedral, 2013, Christchurch, New Zealand; Photo by Stephen Goodenough
After the 1995 earthquake in Kobe, Japan, he again donated his time and talent. There, Ban developed the “Paper Log House,” for Vietnamese refugees in the area, with donated beer crates filled with sandbags or the foundation, he lined up the paper cardboard tubes vertically, to create the walls of the houses.
Ban also designed “Paper Church,” as a community center of paper tubes for the victims of Kobe. It was later disassembled and sent to Taiwan, and reconstructed there, in 2008.
Ban works with local victims, students, and other volunteers to get these disaster relief projects built. In 1995, he founded a non-governmental organization (NGO) called VAN: Voluntary Architects’ Network. With VAN, following earthquakes, tsunami, hurricanes, and war, he has conducted this work in Japan, Turkey, India, Sri Lanka, China, Haiti, Italy, New Zealand, and currently, the Philippines.
Japan Pavilion, Expo 2000 Hannover, 2000, Germany; Photo by Hiroyuki Hirai
Pritzker Prize jury chairman, The Lord Palumbo, said, “Shigeru Ban is a force of nature, which is entirely appropriate in the light of his voluntary work for the homeless and dispossessed in areas that have been devastated by natural disasters. But he also ticks the several boxes for qualification to theArchitectural Pantheon -- a profound knowledge of his subject with a particular emphasis on cutting-edge materials and technology; total curiosity and commitment; endless innovation; an infallible eye; an acute sensibility -- to name but a few.”
The citation from the Pritzker Prize jury underscores Ban’s experimental approach to common materials such as paper tubes and shipping containers, his structural innovations, and creative use of unconventional materials such as bamboo, fabric, paper, and composites of recycled paper fiber and plastics.
The jury cited Naked House (2000) in Saitama, Japan, in which Ban clad the external walls in clear corrugated plastic and sections of white acrylic stretched internally across a timber frame. The layering of translucent panels evokes the glowing light of shoji screens.
The client asked for no family member to be secluded, so the house consists of one unique large space, two-stories high, in which four personal rooms on casters can be moved about freely.
Ban is the seventh Japanese architect to become a Pritzker Laureate – the first six beingthe late Kenzo Tange in 1987, Fumihiko Maki in 1993, Tadao Ando in 1995, the team of Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa in 2010, and Toyo Ito in 2013.
The award ceremony will take place on June 13, 2014, at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
For more, visit: http://www.pritzkerprize.com/laureates/2014
Paper Refugee Shelters for Rwanda, 1999, Byumba Refugee Camp, Rwanda; Photo by Shigeru Ban Architects
Cardboard Cathedral, 2013, Christchurch, New Zealand; Photo by Stephen Goodenough
Centre Pompidou-Metz, 2010, France; Photo by Didier Boy de la Tour
Curtain Wall House, 1995, Tokyo, Japan; Photo by Hiroyuki Hirai
House of Double-Roof, 1993, Yamanashi, Japan; Photo by Hiroyuki Hirai
Paper Concert Hall, 2011, L’Aquila, Italy; Photo by Didier Boy de la Tour
Paper Concert Hall, 2011, L’Aquila, Italy; Photo by Didier Boy de la Tour
Metal Shutter House, 2010, New York; Photo by Michael Moran
Naked House, 2000, Saitama, Japan; Photo by Hiroyuki Hirai
Nicolas G. Hayek Center, 2007, Tokyo, Japan; Photo by Hiroyuki Hirai
Haesley Nine Bridges Golf Club House, 2010, Korea; Photo by Hiroyuki Hirai
Container Temporary Housing, 2011, Onagawa, Miyagi, Japan; Photo by Hiroyuki Hirai
Related Stories
| Jun 11, 2014
5 ways Herman Miller's new office concept rethinks the traditional workplace
Today's technologies allow us to work anywhere. So why come to an office at all? Herman Miller has an answer.
| Jun 11, 2014
Koolhaas’ OMA teams with chemical company to study link between color and economy
Dutch company AkzoNobel is partnering with Rem Koolhaas' firm OMA to study how the application of colorful paints and coatings can affect a city's economic development.
| Jun 11, 2014
Oceanic oases: Two new luxury condominiums under construction in South Beach
Slated for completion in 2015, both the seven-story, 275,141 square-foot One Ocean and six-story, 190,654 square-foot Marea will offer landscapes by Enzo Enea and interiors by Yabu Pushelberg.
| Jun 11, 2014
Esri’s interactive guide to 2014 World Cup Stadiums
California-based Esri, a supplier of GIS software, created a nifty interactive map that gives viewers a satellite perspective of Brazil’s many new stadiums.
| Jun 10, 2014
Site optimization: Paving the way for smoother land development projects
The biggest cost differential when dealing in site development from one site to another is the earthwork. So, when selecting a site, it is critical to not only take into account the initial purchase price of the property, but also what sort of investment it will take to prep the site for development.
| Jun 10, 2014
Gaudi’s famed cathedral on ice: Dutch students to construct 132-foot ice replica of Sagrada Familia
"Sagrada Familia in Ice" will be built with a mixture of wooden fibers and plain ice that is three times stronger than ice.
| Jun 10, 2014
Built-in balcony: New skylight windows can fold out to create a patio
Roof window manufacturer Fakro offers a skylight window system that quickly converts into an open-air balcony.
| Jun 10, 2014
New York's first-ever public housing for visually-impaired begins upgrade
Selis Manor is the first government-funded residence for the vision-impaired and disabled in New York City. MAP’s design eases crowding, increases security, and separates residents and visitors.
| Jun 9, 2014
6 design strategies for integrating living and learning on campus
Higher education is rapidly evolving. As we use planning and design to help our clients navigate major shifts in culture, technology, and funding, it is essential to focus on strategies that help foster an education that is relevant after graduation. One way to promote relevance is to strengthen the bond between academic disciplines and the campus residential life experience.
| Jun 9, 2014
Green Building Initiative launches Green Globes for Sustainable Interiors program
The new program focuses exclusively on the sustainable design and construction of interior spaces in nonresidential buildings and can be pursued by both building owners and individual lessees of commercial spaces.