Shigeru Ban

Master innovator: Challenging accepted notions of architecture

From emergency relief shelters to a cardboard cathedral and exhibition spaces in shipping containers, Pritzker-prize winning architect Shigeru Ban has made his name with his restlessly inventive response to material and situation, as much as with his humanitarian work at the sites of natural and man-made disasters.

In the spirit of three-dimensional poetry, Ban uses materials as an incorporated part of his design, selected not for their cutting-edge credentials but rather for their expressive ability, their capacity to convey the building’s overall concept. In particular, Ban has made regular use of paper tubing in projects as varied as the Japanese Pavilion at Expo 2000 and emergency shelters for Rwanda’s Byumba Refugee Camp.

This essential introduction, compiled with Ban’s own collaboration, presents every one of his projects to date to survey the full reach and importance of, in the words of the Pritzker Prize jury, a “committed teacher who is not only a role model for a younger generation but also an inspiration.”

About the series: 

Each book in TASCHEN’s Basic Architecture series features:
- an introduction to the life and work of the architect
- the major works in chronological order
- information about the clients, architectural preconditions as well as construction problems and resolutions
- a list of all the selected works and a map indicating the locations of the best and most famous buildings
- approximately 120 illustrations (photographs, sketches, drafts, and plans)

About the author:

Philip Jodidio studied art history and economics at Harvard, and edited Connaissance des Arts for over 20 years. His TASCHEN books include the Architecture Now! series and monographs on Tadao Ando, Norman Foster, Renzo Piano, Jean Nouvel, Shigeru Ban, Oscar Niemeyer, and Zaha Hadid.