Architect Shigeru Ban, whose numerous projects span the globe, from housing to public facilities and disaster relief, will host his first major solo exhibition, "Shigeru Ban: Architectural Concepts and Methods," at Art Tower Mito, opening March 2nd. This exhibition features mockups—life-size or near-life-size reproductions—that allow visitors to closely examine the details of joints and materials. Exhibits include the "Actual Paper Log House," designed as temporary housing after the Great Hanshin Earthquake and later adapted for use in Turkey and India; the "Centre Pompidou-Metz" (a branch of the French National Center for Arts), which opened in 2010; and the "Tamedia Office Building Mockup," a wooden office building scheduled for completion in March in Zurich. This exhibition also allows visitors to take photographs of the exhibited works and share them on social media. Related programs include a symposium discussing urban reconstruction and gallery tours led by Ban's assistants, who have worked on disaster relief projects. Born in Tokyo in 1957, Ban graduated from the Cooper Union School of Architecture and began working at Arata Isozaki's Atelier in 1982. In 1985, he founded Shigeru Ban Architects. Since the 1980s, he has developed new architectural materials and techniques, such as the "Paper House" and the "Japan Pavilion at the Hannover World Exposition" that use recycled paper tubes, and has also applied these to disaster relief projects such as "Paper Log Houses" and "Easy Partitions for Evacuation Shelters." He is also an aid activist, having been involved in relief projects for over 17 years for refugees and disaster victims in the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake, the Great East Japan Earthquake, Rwanda, Sri Lanka, Haiti, New Orleans, USA, Turkey, and other countries.
【Event Information】
Shigeru Ban: Architectural Concepts and Methods
Location: Mito Art Tower Contemporary Art Gallery and on the Mito Art Tower grounds
Address: 1-6-8 Gokencho, Mito City, Ibaraki Prefecture
Dates: March 2nd to May 12th, 2013
Time: 9:30am to 6:00pm (last admission 30 minutes before closing)
Closed: Mondays (except April 29th and May 6th, closed the following day, April 30th and May 7th)
Admission: 800 yen for adults, 600 yen for advance tickets for groups of 20 or more
