Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.If you build it, he will come…
If you build it and you’re the Japanese architect Shigeru Ban, you will be awarded the profession’s greatest honour in the form of the Pritzker Architecture Prize.
What’s that?
Hailed as “architecture’s Nobel”, the international prize is awarded annually to a living architect who has made a significant contribution to the industry. Ban, 56, has been given the 2014 award for crafting structures – ranging from homes to art galleries to cathedrals – made out of cardboard.
Cardboard? What’s wrong with bricks and mortar?
“When you finish a roll of tracing paper, there are always paper tubes left,” the Tokyo-born architect said. “They were so strong and so nice, so I kept them. I went to the factory where they made them, and saw they could make any length and any diameter.” Ban was honoured not only for his great eye for design but his humanitarian work, too.
He gives back to the community?
In 1994 Ban was so moved by the displacement of millions in the Rwandan civil war, he proposed paper-tube shelters to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, who hired him as a consultant. A year later he built paper log cabins after the Kobe earthquake, with foundations made from sand-filled beer crates and walls of cardboard tubes. He founded the Voluntary Architects’ Network in 1995 and has since helped with disaster relief in Turkey, India, China and Haiti.
Wow, what’s his latest project?
Last year Ban, who splits his time between offices in Tokyo, Paris and New York, built a stunning cardboard cathedral after the 2011 earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand. Lord Palumbo, chair of the Pritzker jury, described Ban as “a force of nature”, which, he said, was “entirely appropriate in the light of his voluntary work for the homeless in areas devastated by natural disasters”. The award is a bronze medallion and $100,000.
What grand designs has he got in mind now?
“This prize is a great honour,” he said. “I must continue to listen to the people I work for, in my private residential commissions and my disaster relief work. I see this prize as encouragement for me to keep doing what I am doing – not to change what I am doing, but to grow."
Subscribe to Independent Premium to bookmark this article
Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? Start your Independent Premium subscription today.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments