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Shigeru
Ban: Paper in Architecture essays by Riichi
Miyake, edited by Ian Luna and Lauren A. Gould
Rizzoli, 2009
Hardcover, 232 pages
Material
Immaterial: The New Work of Kengo Kuma by Botond
Bognar
Princeton Architectural Press, 2009
Hardcover/Paperback, 256 pages
These recent monographs on two well-known
Japanese architects present some of the best architecture
coming out of that country in recent years. Both Shigeru
Ban and Kengo
Kuma manage to produce a lot more buildings than the
contracted bust years of their home country would attest.
They do this by extending their reach outside their own
borders and by exploring fairly unconventional avenues for
architectural production, particularly in the case of Ban.
Their buildings have certain aesthetic similarities, at
the level of the fairly cliche Japanese minimalism, but
Ban and Kuma have unique approaches to lead to rather idiosyncratic
designs, apparent in the pages of each book.
An excellent 2003
monograph on Shigeru Ban partitioned the architect's
projects into chapters based on materials, primarily paper,
wood, and bamboo. Rizzoli's monograph focuses on the first,
definitely his most well-known material palette, ranging
from emergency shelters and temporary installations to churches
and furniture. For Ban paper means cardboard, expressed
in the book's textured jacket as well as the many illustrations
inside. Building in cardboard requires lots and lots of
experimentation, testing and documentation, in order to
meet local building code requirements. Ban's technical work
in this regard is presented in the earlier monograph, but
Rizzoli's target audience is more general, so Miyake's essays
and the project descriptions discuss these necessary complications
without being esoteric for non-architects. Writing this
review a mere days after the earthquake
in Haiti, I can't help but appreciate Ban's disaster
relief projects -- for Rwanda, Kobe, Turkey, and other places
-- and think he should be involved in helping create temporary
shelter for displaced survivors. Who knows, Ban may be thinking
the same thing.
While Ban is known for his paper
architecture amongst his much larger portfolio, Kengo Kuma
is known for working in a number of materials. He will focus
on one material on a particular project, but his explorations
veer across the spectrum, from traditional woods and stones
to innovative envelopes with different plastics. Botond
Bognar, who authors the new monograph on Kuma with his
son Balázs Bognár, uses materials as a way
to group the architect's projects, finding strains within
his work that arise from focusing on a particular material.
The cover project, the Chokkura
Plaza, clearly exhibits how Kuma finds an expression
related to the material yet groundbreaking in its application.
Here stone is interweaved with steel plates to create a
screen with diamond shaped openings. It's a striking response
to the porosity of the local Oya stone and its variegated
surface. This is the second monograph on Kuma by
Bognar in a stretch of only five years, a testament
to the many fine buildings created in a short period of
time. It also illustrates how much of a change can occur
in that time, as Kuma changed his goal of making architecture
disappearing to a similar but nuanced approach related to
materials like stone that don't embody disappearance in
any direct way. These projects also point to the next steps
in his career: ever-larger projects that will create segments
of the city, not just individual buildings "disappearing"
within them.
Shigeru Ban: Paper Architecture:
US: 
CA: 
UK: 
Material Immaterial:
US:
CA:
UK:
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