Shigeru Ban

Rating:
Summary: Excellent, persuasive monograph
Review: The book itself is almost the perfect monograph. Each project is described concisely, and it has all the drawings and photos to orient the reader to the site, the program and the idea. The drawings and photos range from the finest detail to the biggest gestures, and doesn't isolate the projects like they're pristine objects. The photos often emphasize the construction or assembly of the work, though the finished photos and model shots are expressive and informative too. The pages with experimental and test calculations are well-organized and relate back to specific projects and details, using graphs, tables and pictures or drawings of the elements or details in question. For a non-engineer, it's all rather clear and convincing. I've never seen ideas and processes presented so rationally and convincingly. Nothing here seems superfluous and Ban reveals his process and interests completely to the reader.

Of course, the projects themselves are fantastic. John Hedjuk's influence is all over the work, and I dare say that Ban's actualized projects are now richer, have reached greater depth and are more expressive and informative than his mentor's. On one level, you could imagine that Ban's preoccupation with wood products, "green" construction and sustainable design started as a bad pun that served as the basis of his student thesis. ("Paper Architecture." Ha-ha.) But the rigor and depth that he brings to each project break through any temptation to show self-conscious irony or superficiality. At the end of the day, he's an architect's architect who controls proportion and light, defines space and considers human scale in all his work. He makes Calatrava look like "just" an engineer. And his works aren't just formal exercises with nine square grids and such. His ideas and works begin to touch on politics without seeming pretentious or partisan with his refugeee shelters and other more recent work (although those private houses do present a counterpoint to the socially-oriented work in more ways than one).

Anyway, great book, great work. I'm totally convinced of Ban's skills and talent.