Customer Reviews

Shigeru Ban

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I read this book and another volume with the same title published by Phaidon together. My suggestion is that read the Phaidon book first, then supplement with this one. Phaidon's book catpures the core of Ban's architectural identity and is well-organized by the building materials he used in the projects (paper, wood, bamboo, prefab, and skin). The text in that book is also technical, detail, and informative.

Though there are quite a few overlaps between these two books, this book includes more projects than the Phaidon volume. For example, it presents Ban's early works (emphasizing the use of walls), his exhibition installations (from which he got the inspiration of paper architecture), and more furniture house projects.

If I can only buy one book, I will definitely choose the Phaidon book and get a copy of this book from the library.

A must-have monograph that is as lucid, intelligent, and unpretentious as its subject-and at a bargain price. Ban combines a respect for the Japanese architectural tradition of simple, open, lightweight structures with the theoretical rigor he absorbed from John Hejduc, his teacher at Cooper Union. His signature element is the cardboard tube (first used as an economy in his installation of an Aalto exhibition) and since employed as the structural support for houses, a post-earthquake church in Kobe, a graceful canopy over the MoMA garden, and the Japanese Pavilion at Expo 2000 in Hanover. Ban's oeuvre includes provocative private houses and temporary shelters for disaster victims.

If you are into architecture in any way, try this book. Although there is not a lot of usefull information in this book it is still a good read. It features simple and effective descriptions of some of his famous buildings which are illustrated by great photographs and small diagrams. And that is the power of this book: keeping it simple.