Shigeru Ban

Graduated from Cooper Union, Shigeru Ban began working for Arata Isozaki & Associates in 1982. In 1985, he founded Shigeru Ban Architects. In 1995, he became a consultant for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and, in the same year, founded the NGO Voluntary Architects’ Network (VAN) to support disaster relief efforts. His works include the Nicolas G. Hayek Center, the Centre Pompidou-Metz, and the Oita Prefectural Art Museum. He has received numerous awards, including the Grande Médaille d’Or from the Académie d’architecture (2004), the Arnold W. Brunner Memorial Prize in Architecture (2005), the Grand Prize of AIJ (2009), an honorary doctorate from Technische Universität München (2009), the Order of Arts and Letters, France (2010), the Auguste Perret Prize (2011), the Art Prize from the Japanese Agency for Cultural Affairs (2012), the Order of Arts and Letters, France (Commander grade) (2014), the JIA Grand Prix (2016), and the Mother Teresa Social Justice Award (2017). He was a professor at Keio University (2001–2008), Visiting Professor at Harvard University GSD and Cornell University (2010), and is currently a professor at Keio University (2015–present). He won the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 2014.