Shigeru Ban gets Pritzker Architecture Prize for 2014

NEW YORK - The Japanese architect Shigeru Ban, who has combined a talent for innovative design and experimental use of everyday materials with extensive humanitarian efforts around the globe, has won the 2014 Pritzker Architecture Prize.

Ban, 56, is the seventh architect from Japan to receive the honor, which will be officially awarded in June. For two decades, he has rushed to the site of disasters - for example, the 1995 earthquake in Kobe, Japan, or the 1994 conflict in Rwanda - to construct temporary relief shelters. He has often used cardboard paper tubes as building materials, since they are easily found, easily transported and can be water-proofed or fire-proofed.

Ban’s relief work has not been limited to creating living shelters. In the wake of the 2009 earthquake in L’Aquila, Italy, for example, he created a temporary auditorium so the city’s musicians could continue to play. And after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan, he created partitions for existing emergency shelters so families could have some privacy.

Outside his humanitarian work, Ban’s noted projects have included the Centre Pompidou-Metz, a modern art museum in Metz, France, that features a remarkable curved roof made of timber - and inspired by a Chinese hat.

In its citation, the Pritzker jury noted Ban’s unique approach to materials. “He is able to see in standard components and common materials, such as paper tubes, packing materials or shipping containers,” the jury wrote, “opportunities to use them in new ways.”

It noted his “Naked House” in Saitama, Japan, which used clear corrugated plastic on the external walls and white acrylic across a timber frame to create a home that questions “the traditional notion of rooms and consequently domestic life.”

Ban’s “Curtain Wall House” in Tokyo uses two-story high white curtains to open or close the home to the outside. Similarly, his “Metal Shutter Houses” in New York’s Chelsea neighborhood feature a unique metal shutter system to open up apartments to the city air.

But it is Ban’s humanitarian work that the Pritzker jury emphasized in announcing the prize, which will be formally awarded June 13 at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. “Where others may see insurmountable challenges, Ban sees a call to action,” the citation said.

Speaking in an interview this week in one of the distinctive “Metal Shutter House” apartments, Ban, who has offices in Tokyo, Paris and New York, explained that despite his extensive work for private clients, his humanitarian efforts are of utmost importance to him. “This is my life’s work,” he said.

AP