A Pioneering Architect Shares a Glimpse Into His World


A Pioneering Architect Shares a Glimpse Into His World

The architect Shigeru Ban, one of the four cover subjects of this year’s T Greats issue, doesn’t like waste — in architecture, or in life. Best known for his disaster-relief shelters made from recycled paper tubes, Ban is similarly rigorous about conserving time. He has no pets and no children, and his only downtime comes in the evening, when he breaks for dinner. In 1995, he built himself a weekend house near Mt. Fuji that, he tells Nikil Saval, “gets no use at all.” It’s fitting then, that when T sent Ban an instant camera and asked him to document scenes from his life, the pictures he sent back were mainly of his projects or his inspirations. His images — which show his latest project in Biel, Switzerland, and his office in Paris, where paper-tube shelving houses miniature models of his buildings — offer an intimate look at the Pritzker Prize-winning architect’s work life. But he also shares rare moments of quiet: the Stravinsky Fountain, passed on a walk through the Marais; a set of stairs; and a bottle of Jacques Selosse, opened with family on a trip to the Champagne region of northeast France. See his visual diary below.

[Sign up here for the T List newsletter, a weekly roundup of what T Magazine editors are noticing and coveting now.]

Ban at his office in Paris’s Marais neighborhood. Behind him, stored on shelving made from his signature recycled paper tubes, are models of past projects, including his Epcot sphere-like La Seine Musicale, a 6,000-seat concert hall in the suburbs of Paris.

La Sirene, the mermaid figure from the Stravinsky Fountain in Paris, created by the Swiss sculptor Jean Tinguely and the French-American artist Niki de Saint Phalle in 1983, which Ban passes on his walk from home to work.

The view from Ban’s apartment in the Marais. A mural depicting Salvador Dalí, by the street artist Jef Aérosol, overlooks the Place Georges-Pompidou.

An old, uneven staircase in a Paris apartment building. Ban is known for finding inspiration for architectural innovations in usual places: A Chinese straw hat purchased at an antique shop on the Boulevard Saint-Germain, for example, became the basis for the woven timber roof of his Centre Pompidou-Metz.

Ban first encountered the work of Alvar Aalto, the Finnish architect, on a trip to Scandinavia. Aalto’s work has been an important influence on Ban ever since.

The Swatch and Omega Campus in Biel, Switzerland, is Ban’s latest project. Inaugurated earlier this month, it includes the office of the watch company Swatch, the Omega watch factory, and the Swatch and Omega museum and conference hall, depicted here.

Standing on a bridge that connects the museum with the offices and factory, Ban’s honeycomb-like timber roof is visible. It is constructed from 7,700 unique pieces of wood.

The bridge is covered by an undulating, tubelike timber roof. The transparent cells are covered by thin sheets of plastic, inflated with air until they are firm enough to support weight.

Ban takes a rare break for a bottle of Champagne, his drink of choice. He prefers bottles from Jacques Selosse, whose vineyard he recently visited in the Avize region with his family.

The architect’s eye is always at work: “I took this because I thought the pictures on the wall match very well with the bathtub,” says Ban.


Source link