Shigeru Ban used cardboard pillars in fashion designer Issey Miyake's gallery — and chairs — in Tokyo
He Builds With a Really Tough Material: Paper
By BELINDA LUSCOMBE
There are a few ineluctable facts about buildings. They are expensive, time consuming and labor intensive to make. They are strongest if built from the sturdiest materials. Well, no, on all counts. Japanese architect Shigeru Ban has built homes, pavilions and churches, some of them permanent, using little more than cardboard tubes. "I was interested in weak materials," says Ban, 42. "Whenever we invent a new material or new structural system, a new architecture comes out of it."
Ironically, Ban may be closer to the old modernist ideals than many who build today in glass and steel. He wants beauty to be attainable by the masses, even the poorest. Ban first began to use the tubes in the '80s, in exhibitions. Impressed by the material's load-bearing capacity (he calls cardboard "improved wood"), he thought of them again in 1995, after the Kobe earthquake, and used donated 34-ply tubes to build a community hall and houses.
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Examine Shigeru Ban's original pencil sketches of his recent designs. |
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Name: Shigeru Ban Age: 42 Why critics are taking note: Ban's ingenious use of cardboard has redefined permanent and temporary shelter |
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