For me, there's no difference between what's temporary and what's definitive. I built the church in Kobe, which was supposed to be temporary, and people liked it so much that there's a version of it still there today - unlike some concrete buildings that were just built for money and that can be destroyed from one day to the next. Concrete can be very fragile during earthquakes.

Shigeru Ban

Categorized in : People Church One Day

I believe that the material doesn’t need to be strong to be used to build a strong structure. The strength of the structure has nothing to do with the strength of the material.

strong believe needs

Architects mostly work for privileged people, people who have money and power. Power and money are invisible, so people hire us to visualize their power and money by making monumental architecture. I love to make monuments, too, but I thought perhaps we can use our experience and knowledge more for the general public, even for those who have lost their houses in natural disasters.

architecture house people

I'm not inventing anything new, I'm just using existing material... by Shigeru Ban

I'm not inventing anything new, I'm just using existing material differently.

inventing materials

An architect does not need to spend his whole career making monum... by Shigeru Ban

An architect does not need to spend his whole career making monuments for rich people.

careers doe people

Architecture is not about designing somehting from a free, fanciful idea. It is about discovering and establishing one's own principle, some kind of regularity - finding an individual formula to apply to one's buildings.

design principles ideas

I did a lot of tests, and I finalized my research. Paper has become a part of my visual vocabulary. You know, paper is an industrial material. You can do almost anything with it. Wood, for example, is much more difficult to adapt to different needs.

difficult different

The most important thing, in order to forge one's own creative personality, is to travel, to see different environments, different cultures. I wanted to try to imagine a new kind of structure in architecture. In general, architects follow fashions. They're neoclassical, postmodern.

fashion creative personality

People are not killed by earthquakes alone, but by collapsed buil... by Shigeru Ban

People are not killed by earthquakes alone, but by collapsed buildings.

building earthquakes people

Everyone used to want to be star architects. That's no longer the... by Shigeru Ban

Everyone used to want to be star architects. That's no longer the case.

architecture stars want

I travel a lot. Japanese culture is very ancient and very strong. That's why most people who commission work from Japanese architects expect them to create works that have an element of exoticism, the kind typical of Japanese culture. I don't do that.

strong culture people

Even if a building is made out of paper, if people love them, the... by Shigeru Ban

Even if a building is made out of paper, if people love them, then they will become permanent.

top-news