Shigeru Ban wins 2014 Pritzker Prize


Cardboard Cathedral (2013), Christchurch, New Zealand. Photo Stephen Goodenough.

Shigeru Ban has been awarded the 2014 Pritzker Architecture Prize, it has been announced. Ban is the seventh Japanese architect to win the prize, considered to be the top distinction in the architectural field, since its founding in 1979. He joins Kenzo Tange, Fumihiko Maki, Tadao Ando, Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa of SANAA, and last year’s recipient, Toyo Ito. Amazingly, Ban is the third Japanese architect or firm to win the prize since 2010, following Sejima/Nishizwa and Ito.
Ban is best known for his “paper architecture” made of lightweight, easily produceable cardboard tubing, which he has applied to humanitarian and disaster relief projects in countries as diverse as China, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Rwanda, Sri Lanka and Turkey. He has also contributed temporary living units made from shipping containers for displaced people in Onagawa, Miyagi Prefecture, following the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami of March 11, 2011, and has built a temporary “Cardboard Cathedral” near the site of the ChristChurch Cathedral, which was destroyed in the 2011 Christchurch earthquake. He operates his own NGO, Voluntary Architects’ Network, to organize his relief projects.
Ban’s most famous commercial and public projects include the Centre Pompidou-Metz in France and the Nicholas G. Hayek Center in Tokyo. He is currently working on a new headquarters and production building for Swatch/Omega in Switzerland, and art museums in Aspen and Oita.
Led by Lord Palumbo, the jury cited Ban not only for his structural innovations and experimentation with unconventioanl materials, but also for “responding with creativity and high quality design to extreme situations caused by devastating natural disasters,” and for making “a place at the table for architects to participate in the dialogue with governments and public agencies, philanthropists, and the affected communities.”


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Shigeru Ban: Solving Problems through Design

Shigeru Ban contributes architecture to earthquake relief

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