Shigeru Ban Paperback – March 1, 2006

I really enjoyed this book due to its in-depth investigation on the designs of Shigeru Ban. Ample in the book are photographs as well as technical drawings such as plans and sections. The mentioned technical drawings are not small enough that you can't read them but they aren't very big either. The pictures itself is printed on high quality paper which contributes to the overall readability. It should be noted that much of the photographs and diagrams could be found on Shigeru Ban's own website though this shouldn't be a deterrent since there are also much information that isn't posted on his website that is included in the book.As such, i found this book to have more of a focus on the structural nature of Ban's materials as there is a section at the end of every chapter noting the structural tests and strength of the materials used. This certainly isn't a bad thing considering it is an architect's job to make sure that a building that he/she designs is one that stand up to the forces of nature. However, laymen could be turned off by these end of the chapter sections. Furthermore, detailed and exploded axonometric drawings are scattered in this book that show the structure of the building which is a definite plus.One should note that this book was first published 2003 so it doesn't have much of Ban's latest works but that shouldn't deter anyone from purchasing this book as it still have a lot of positive aspectsThis is definitely one of Phaidon's better architectural monographs and should serve to inspire and inform.

There are many beautiful photographs. What I really wanted from it was the engineering details for the construction and testing of the cardboard tubes and detailed architectural drawings of the structures. There are details you will find in this book that don't appear to be published anywhere online, but if you are looking to reproduce some of Ban's work, you'll have to make some educated guesses on the dimensions. There are good details on how the cardboard tubes were tested and coated with urethane.

The fact that this book comes with real explanation and plans of the proyects is why it was chosen above all others... arquitects don't read pictures, they read plans...

Shigeru Ban is famous for his innovative use of building materials, structural rigor and pureness. This book captures all these quintessential attributes of this ingenious architect.The editor did a great job of organizing Ban's projects according to the building materials (i.e., paper, wood, bamboo, prefab, and skin). Multiple projects in each chapter form a coherent and articulated presentation of how Ban took advantage of the uniquessness of certain material and incorporated it into his architectural philosophy and aesthetics.The text is technical oriented which often includes the characteristics of the materials and the issues concerning structural engineering. At the end of most chapters, you can find detailed technical information and test statistics of the building materials used in the featured projects. Moreover, at the beginning of the book, Ban also contributed an article on the whole building process of building his classic work: Japanese Pavillion, which is very informative and instructive.Another noteworthy strength of this book is that it reveals the connectness of Ban's different projects and shows how the architect developed and built his own architectural style programmatically (e.g., How he developed, refined, and matured the paper architecture, the furniture house idea, the ivy structure, and the universal floor plan through several dozens of projects).Put together, this is a well-organized, thoughtful, and informative book about Ban's contribution to the international architectural community. Bravo!

the work of this interessant japanese architect, it's a demonstration of a continuated and progressive developmente of an architecture beautifull and deep.

Excellent book,interesting, useful not only for architectors but for anybody. good print quality.

As my title says, the book covers a -in my opinion- a good selection of works. It lacks plans and I am surprised of this but it includes a series of information about structures of the most important buildings.Nice book for its price, even though the lack of plans. A great selection of photos.The quality of the printing is great.

Très bon livre bien détaillé en allant par les projets de l'architecte à ses plans. Très complet, je recommande définitivement