BOOK: Shigeru Ban, Complete Works 1985–Today, Taschen Publications

Japanese architect Shigeru Ban is a maestro of the slight yet seductive, known for his innovative work with paper, particularly recycled cardboard tubes. Ban was born in Tokyo, Japan and studied at Tokyo University of the Arts, and then at the Southern California Institute of Architecture. Later he went to Cooper Union’s School of Architecture in New York City, where he trained under the legendary and experimental architect John Hejduk. Shigeru Ban’s practice has been praised for balancing between building exquisite private residences for those who can afford them (like his paper, furniture, curtain wall, and shutter houses) and offering design solutions to house the victims of man-made and natural disasters. Ban’s elegant and innovative style prioritizes the concept of the building, incorporating the base structure into the total aesthetic experience of the architecture. His work is also ecologically minded, leaning towards materials that produce as little waste as possible. Ban’s background has a definite impact on his projects too; many themes and methods found in traditional Japanese architecture, such as shōji, and the idea of a ‘universal floor’ to allow continuity between all rooms in a house, appear constantly in his buildings. A valuable insight into the works and mind of Japanese architect Shigeru Ban. Author Philip Jodidio explores long anticipated completed buildings, new projects, and a future outlook of the studio Shigeru Ban after Taschen has followed his career from the beginning. The monograph “Complete Works 1985–Today” is a journey through the years and evolution of an architect who made a name for himself with true architectural marvels that cannot be surpassed in innovation, elegance, and sensibility. Next to early buildings deploying paper tubes as structural elements, as well as houses that challenge as fundamental an idea as walls, like the Curtain Wall House in Tokyo and the Wall-Less House in Nagano’s countryside, we see plenty of recent versatile projects. View a two-story penthouse on top of a 140-year-old New York City landmark cast-iron house, the Swatch/Omega Campus in Switzerland, and La Seine Musicale, a concert hall inserted into an overall master plan conceived by Jean Nouvel for the island Île Seguin in France.-Efi Michalarou