B S a h n i g e r u AH ru cm ha i n t i e t c a t r u i r a l n Shigeru Ban Humanitarian Architecture Contributions by Shigeru Ban, Claude Bruderlein, Michael Kimmelman, Koh Kitayama, Brad Pitt, Naomi Pollock, Eyal Weizman, and Heidi Zuckerman Jacobson In 2014 Shigeru Ban was conferred architecture’s most coveted award, the Pritzker Prize, which recognizes an architect for excellence in built work and “consistent and significant contributions to humanity.” It is difficult to think of any architect who has fulfilled this last achievement more fundamentally and thoroughly than Shigeru Ban. Alongside his practice creating stunningly beautiful and ecologically respectful luxury commissions, since the 1990s the Japanese architect has sought out the world’s most neglected pockets of disaster victims, providing them with homes, schools, places of worship, and community centers. Ban configures plastic beer crates, paper-tube framing, and shipping containers to create ingeniously flexible spaces. By sourcing unconventional, recycled, inexpensive, local, and sustainable materials, he stimulates devastated economies by involving local resources and labor. Ban’s humanitarian architecture has been constructed around the world—at sites both rural and urban, in developing countries and in economically privileged nations, such as in the post-Katrina houses he designed for Brad Pitt’s Make It Right Foundation. Some of his works, such as his Cardboard Cathedral in Christchurch, New Zealand, have become tourist destinations. Most of them, however—in villages and cities hit by typhoons, earthquakes, tsunamis, and civil unrest—are more elemental dwellings and schools, quietly funded or fundraised by Ban himself. These buildings have restored comfort, protection, dignity, and daily routine to uprooted refugees. continued on back flap Front cover, from top: Hualin Temporary Elementary School; Chengdu City, Sichuan, China; 2008. Cardboard Cathedral; Christchurch, New Zealand; 2013. Paper Log House; Daanbantayan, Cebu, the Philippines; 2014. Back cover: Paper Emergency Shelter for UNHCR; Byumba Refugee Camp, Rwanda, 1999; Supply list for shelter kits. jutions oveted . nzes ar . i onsiste lity.” it j as ffuullffiill Jide his he 199( > world . Contributors CD S CD h Shigeru Ban Claude Bruderlein D i Michael Kimmelman g Koh Kitayama e Brad Pitt Naomi Pollock r Eyal Weizman u Heidi Zuckerman Jacobson dap Aspen Art Museum HJtions I Kimmi oveted jsS -■ >nsister ity. It i! s fulfill lentally ,deh,s Jlogica ie 199C isive, Ic . J tes dev Texts C o 7 Foreword n Heidi Zuckerman Jacobson t e 13 Shigeru Ban: In the Service of Society n Michael Kimmelman t s 31 The Architecture of Shigeru Ban: Blurred Lines and Ambiguous Boundaries Naomi Pollock 41 Architecture for Nurturing People A Conversation between Koh Kitayama and Shigeru Ban 57 Paper Architecture and Make It Right A Conversation between Brad Pitt and Shigeru Ban 67 Humanitarian Spaces Eyal Weizman 75 Shigeru Ban: A Vision for a New Form of Humanitarianism Claude Bruderlein Humanitarian Projects 85 Paper Log House, 1995 99 Paper Church, 1995 111 Paper Emergency Shelter for UNHCR, 1999 125 Paper Log House, 2000 135 Paper Log House, 2001 143 Paper Partition System 1 (Paper House), 2004 147 Paper Partition System 2, 2005 151 Post-Tsunami Reconstruction Project, 2005 165 Paper Partition System 3, 2006 171 Paper Emergency Shelter, 2008 179 Temporary Housing after Sichuan Earthquake, 2008 187 Hualin Temporary Elementary School, 2008 199 Post-Katrina Housing (Make It Right), 2009 205 Paper Emergency Shelter for Haiti, 2010 211 Paper Partition System 4, 2011 221 Paper Concert Hall, 2011 229 Container Temporary Housing, 2011 237 Community Center, 2011 245 Cardboard Cathedral, 2013 257 Miao Miao Paper Nursery School, 2014 269 Paper Log House, 2014 281 Shigeru Ban Biographical Timeline 283 Contributors ;/>• . ■ • . . ■"rV:-:;. ' Ifipis ' •• ® ' i '■ oveted . izes ar _ . , jnsiste m is fulfil nentall tide his ologiCc he 199| :V There are many things that can be said about Shigeru Ban and perhaps the most important is that he is a humanitarian. Ban should be admired as a creative genius as well as an innovative and fearless advocate for those in need. It has been stated that a society should be judged by how it treats its weakest and most vulnerable members; it is there, too, that Ban stands as a beacon of honor and judgment, showing that serving others ultimately serves all. Shigeru Ban Architects (SBA) was founded with the focus on exploring unique design materials and structures. Through its unique designs SBA strives to pioneer new solutions to push the boundaries of conventional building processes. Ban is critically heralded for his inventive approaches to environmentally sound architecture. He is widely known for structures that incorporate paper, and in particular for his singular development of paper-tube technology. His dual concerns and commitments to both environmental and humanitarian efforts first drove him to design and implement temporary shelters for victims of Kobe after Japan’s 1995 Great Hanshin- Awaji Earthquake, as well as offer his services between 1994 and 1999 to the United Nations in aid of the victims of Rwanda’s civil war. Although in a quintessential^ modest Japanese manner Ban has never specifically stated why he made this first effort, the answer becomes clear after years of knowing him—there was no other option; it was the right thing to do. Shigeru Ban: Humanitarian Architecture, one of the inaugural exhibitions in the new Aspen Art Museum, also designed by Ban, presents four full-scale examples of the architect’s groundbreaking designs for humanitarian relief. These allow the viewer to enter and experience his structures, establishing empathy. The exhibition, for which Ban collaborated on the design, broadly explores this essential and inspiring component of the architect’s practice. The first structure, Paper Emergency Shelter for United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) (1995-99) was originally designed for refugees of the Rwandan genocide, and later revised as Ban’s Paper Emergency Shelters for Haiti in 2010. The second structure is the Paper Log House designed for Kobe, Japan (1995) and then revised for Kaynasli, Turkey (1999), Bhuj, India (2001), and most recently redesigned for use after Typhoon Haiyan in Cebu, in the Philippines (2014). Our visitors can also experience Ban’s Paper Partition System 4, designed for victims of the Great Japan Earthquake and Tsunami (2011), and the fourth structure is one of the buildings of his Hualin Temporary Elementary School (2008), designed for use after the Sichuan Earthquake in China. After seeing photographs of the plastic sheets given to refugees to live under in Rwanda in 1994, Ban went to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to propose ideas for better shelters. Since then, he has devoted himself to humanitarian efforts in the wake of some of the most devastating natural and man-made disasters of the past two decades. To date, Ban has designed and implemented shelters and other structures for victims of the 1995 Great Hanshin- Awaji Earthquake in Kobe, Japan; the Rwandan genocide; the 1999 Izmit Earthquake in Kaynasli, Turkey; the 2001 Gujarat Earthquake in Bhuj, India; the 2004 Niigata Earthquake; the 2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake and Tsunami; the Fukuoka Earthquake of 2005; the flooding in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina in 2005; the Sri Lankan civil war in 2008; the Sichuan Earthquake of 2008; the 2009 L’Aquila Earthquake in Abruzzo, Italy; the 2010 earthquake that struck Haiti; the 2011 earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand; the Great Japan Earthquake and Tsunami of 2011; the 2013 Haiyan Typhoon in Cebu, the Philippines; and the 2013 Sichuan Earthquake in Ya'an City, China. Ban is an itinerant traveler. With offices in Tokyo, Paris, and New York and with projects all over the world, he is in almost constant motion. Perhaps part of his empathy for those who were forcibly removed from their homes results from his profoundly different yet psychically similar absence of home. Simply stated, Ban understands the ability of architecture to provide both grace and dignity and has chosen to offer his ideas to those who are often overlooked. Simultaneous to working on some of the most significant cultural and commercial commissions globally, when disaster strikes, Ban immediately uproots himself from where he is and what he is doing to travel to the site and discern how best to help. The good society is more then a concept or a goal, its construction can be and is part of the daily practice of those who choose to prioritize it. And although I had to cajole and gently insist upon his allowing me to do so, it is our pleasure and privilege at the Aspen Art Museum to chronicle and share Ban’s diverse and inspiring work in this area with the world that he serves. Heidi Zuckerman Jacobson Nancy and Bob Magoon CEO and Director Aspen Art Museum