AWARD PRITZKER 2014
Shigeru Ban wins the 36th 2014 Pritzker Architecture Prize — An outstanding architect who for twenty years has responded with creativity to extreme situations caused by devastating natural disasters.
His buildings often become community centers and spiritual places for people who have suffered losses and destruction: it happened in Rwanda, Turkey, India, China, Italy, Haiti, and in his home country Japan.
With these words, among others, the jury motivated giving the Pritzker Architecture Prize 2014 to Shigeru Ban. This award was established in 1979, and is generally seen as the Nobel Prize for architecture.
The Japanese architect, who is considered to be an anti-archi star, declares: “Receiving this award is a great honor, but I have to keep listening to the people I work for, concering both my private residential commissions and my social work in cases of disasters”.
In 2007, Michael Kimmerlman stated in the New York Times: “His designs are airy, exuberant and harmonious”, describing him as a post- modernist with the touch of both a poet and an inventive designer. All of the above these elements emerged in the handle Moon designed by him for Olivari in 2010.
Just like a master of Tameshi – giri, the difficult Japanese martial art of sword cutting, Ban reveals the essence of the object with a rapid movement, an intantaneous action which, in traditional Japanese arts, represents the creation of beauty: but the hand must be steady, and the mind clear.