Shigeru Ban

Shigeru Ban may be best known for his evocative Curtain Wall House in Tokyo—a highlight of the Museum of Modern Art's 1999 Un-Private House exhibit—but few know the range of this Japanese architect's work. In this first English-language monograph on Ban, 30 built projects reveal his inventiveness and humanitarianism. Ban's primary objectives in his work are the use of low cost materials and the dissolution of the boundaries between interior and exterior spaces. His paper tube designs, which he first created as emergency housing for victims of Rwanda's civil war, were later reconfigured for earthquake victims in Kobe and are currently incorporated in Ban's Japanese Pavilion at Hannover Expo 2000. Influenced by the Japanese tradition of linking the home with the surrounding environment, Ban has created buildings such as Hanegi Forest and Walls—less House that invite nature to coexist with design.