Back

DORODESIGN LIKES: Shigeru Ban, architecture and humanitarian activities

shigerubandesignboom1_wm

A view into the exhibition at Art Tower Mito – Image courtesy Art Tower Mito and Blumer-Lehmann AG

The varied facets of Shigeru Ban’s career are currently being shown in a large solo exhibition at Art Tower Mito, in Mito, Ibaraki prefecture, Japan, curated by Sayako Kadowaki.  entitled ‘architecture and humanitarian activities‘, the show spans the full breadth of his career, from an early design for an exhibition on the Finnish architect Alvar Aalto, to his recent audacious structures in France and Korea executed in massive interlacing strands of timber.
As the title suggests, Ban’s projects for disaster relief form an intrinsic part of the story.

Ban’s cardboard cathedral in the largest city on the south island of New Zealand is among the latest in a succession of projects he has undertaken at the sites of natural and humanitarian disasters. It was the partial destruction of the city’s original stone-built christchurch cathedral in a February 2011 earthquake that prompted him to suggest building a temporary replacement in cardboard.

This exhibition reveals how conscientiously Ban takes architecture’s fundamental mission.
The aesthetic delight or experiential rush that may come from the resulting buildings arises as an outcome of the core concern: providing shelter or space, economically, efficiently, rationally. in this, Ban’s architecture is rooted in the modernist credo that function begets beauty.
Such an architecture sees its main task as ‘problem-solving’.
Disasters create huge problems; architecture’s mission is to solve them.

Shigeru Ban — architecture and humanitarian activities at art tower mito runs till may 12,2013.

A view into the exhibition at Art Tower Mito – Image courtesy Art Tower Mito and Blumer-Lehmann AG

The exhibition features architectural models, mock ups, photographs, videos of his major and important works, furniture, installation and never-before-shown architectural plans. some works are being exhibited as either 1:1 recreations or 1:5 large-scale models, distributed throughout the grounds of the museum or within the galleries, allowing visitors to inspect details and his use of materials up close.
These include both completed buildings and a number of projects next to be finished within the year 2013, including the TEMEDIA AG building in Zurich (scheduled for completion this may).

Woven timber structure, model of column detail of Centre Pompidou-Metz at 1:5 scale – Image courtesy Art Tower Mito and Blumer-Lehmann AG

Close-up – Image courtesy Art Tower Mito and Blumer-Lehmann AG

Woven timber structure columns, detail image of Centre Pompidou-Metz – image © Alexandre Prevot

close-up of a study for the ‘nine bridges golf club’ columns  – image courtesy Art Tower Mito and Blumer-Lehmann AG

 

TAMEDIA construction model – image courtesy art tower mito and blumer-lehmann AG

 

The new headquarters and radio studios for the Swiss media company TAMEDIA is situated in the heart of Zurich.
From an architectural point of view one of the main features of the project is the proposition of a main structural system entirely designed in timber where its innovative character from a technical and environmental standpoint, gives the building a unique appearance from the interior space as well as from the surrounding city. all the joints where horizontal beams meet vertical columns are fashioned with giant wooden pegs — no metal, not even a nail, is used.

close-up of the joinery image courtesy Shigeru Ban — architecture and humanitarian activities at art tower mito and blumer-lehmann AG

TAMEDIA building under construction
image courtesy shigeru ban architects

a view into the exhibition
images courtesy shigeru ban — architecture and humanitarian activities at art tower mito and blumer-lehmann AG

 

‘temporary paper pavilions,’ evacuation center great east japan earthquake, march 2011
image courtesy shigeru ban architects

 

image courtesy art tower mito and blumer-lehmann AG

UNHCR refugee camp in rwanda
image courtesy shigeru ban architects

full-size mock-up of paper emergency shelter for UNHCR, developed for congo refugees in rwanda, 1999
image courtesy art tower mito and blumer-lehmann AG

model of the japan pavilion at expo 2000 in hannover, where shigeru ban worked with german architect and structural engineer frei otto – image courtesy art tower mito and blumer-lehmann AG

 

via designboom

Dario Olivero
Dario Olivero
https://dorodesign.com
DORODESIGN CEO & Design Director