McQuaid, Matilda : Shigeru Ban

Based in Japan and one of an emerging generation of young, world-class architects, Shigeru Ban (b.1957) designs and builds graceful, serene structures using modest and experimental materials such as cardboard, paper tubes, bamboo and prefabricated wood. His buildings are sometimes soaring and birdlike, sometimes simple, grounded, and evocative of the Japanese aesthetic, but always harmoniously integrated with, and respectful of, their surrounding environments.

Ban has designed projects at both ends of the client spectrum: from one-room temporary houses made of paper tubes for earthquake refugees worldwide to a 14,000 square-foot country house in Sharon, Connecticut, his first US commission. His humanitarian efforts and his interest in recyclable, affordable, natural materials have won praise and attention from museums and critics in America and Europe. Ban's 'Curtain Wall House' was a favourite entry in the Museum of Modern Art's 'Un-Private House' exhibition in 1999. He has gone on to design a museum for children in Japan, a canal museum in France, and a private art museum in Belgium. He was included in the 2000 and 2002 Venice Biennales, and created the Japan Pavilion for Expo 2000 in Hanover, Germany. He was a member of the Think team of architects selected in February 2003 as one of two final teams to compete for the commission to design the new World Trade Center site in New York.

This monograph is only the second book on Ban in print and, unlike the first publication, it is impressively up-to-the-minute and exhaustive. Designed in Japan and in collaboration with Ban himself, Shigeru Ban is divided into sections that reflect with sensitivity the architect's approach to materials, and presents 32 entire projects - all of which are illustrated with colour photographs, plans and sketches.