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CLARIN

Japan's "Disaster Architecture" Star To The Rescue After Ecuador Quake

Japanese architect Shigeru Ban, winner of the 2014 Pritzker, has used material like paper and cardboard to rebuild homes in disaster zones. The displaced of Ecuador await his singular eye.

In Portoviejo, Ecuador, on April 18
In Portoviejo, Ecuador, on April 18
Paula Baldo

QUITO — For years, Handel Guayasamín tried to get renowned Japanese architect Shigeru Ban to attend the architectural biennale in the Ecuadorian capital.

As president of the Pichincha province's College of Architects, Guayasamín was enthralled by Ban"s unique designs for building multiple homes with light, cheap and easily assembled materials like cardboard.

Now in a bittersweet twist, disaster is finally bringing the 2014 Pritzker Prize winner to Ecuador. Ban will be giving a talk in Quito on May 2, as part of his planned work for the Ecuadorian state after last month's 7.8-magnitude quake in the country's northern coastal districts, which killed more than 600 people and left thousands homeless,

"It's a historic event," says Guayasamín of Ban's arrival.

[rebelmouse-image 27090170 alt="""" original_size="800x1200" expand=1]

Shigeru Ban — Photo: Forgemind ArchiMedia

The 58-year-old Tokyo native will share his experiences in so-called "crisis architecture," for which work he was awarded the world's top architectural prize two years ago. The Pritzker jury cited Ban's ability to take the same inventive and skillful designs in the work for private clients and apply them in his post-crisis constructions.

Emergency solutions

Ban is the only top-tier architect who builds with paper and cardboard, which he described in a 2013 TED talk as a "tough" material, easily adapted to resist water and even fire. It is not earthquakes, he noted, that killed people, but falling buildings, and architects had some responsibility for that.

When he realized there were no architects focused on disaster relief, where people need shelters built as quickly as possible, Ban decided to turn his focus to this challenge.


Take 5: Natural Disaster Recovery Around the Worldpar Worldcrunch

In 1989, Ban built the first cardboard structure in Nagoya, Japan, which stood for six months before being dismantled. He has since perfected his techniques in various projects characterized by the quality of their architectural spacing and use of cardboard.

His first opportunity to show his work in crisis architecture came in Rwanda in 1994. Civil war there between ethnic groups had left more than two million refugees, and the United Nations camps offered nothing more than plastic structures, which the refugees would strengthen or isolate thermally by cutting trees. This provoked considerable deforestation, while the aluminum tubes proposed as supports were expensive. Ban proposed recycled paper tubes as structural supports, which fitted into his budget of $50 per shelter.

The next year, when Kobe, Japan was hit by a quake and subsequent fires, Ban rebuilt the city's church using the same paper tubes. It was a building of great importance to people in that situation. The building stood for 10 years before being taken down, then rebuilt in Taiwan, following another catastrophe. In Kobe he also built 50 housing units using beer crates as foundations.

[rebelmouse-image 27090171 alt="""" original_size="1024x717" expand=1]

Shigeru Ban-designed Takatori church in Hyogo, Japan— Photo: Bujdosó Attila

In 1999, Ban built a refuge in Turkey using the material and rubble left by an earthquake. In 2008 in China, he built nine school buildings of 500 square meters each within a one-month time frame. In all his projects he has used help from volunteers, generally students. In 2009, he built a temporary concert hall for L'Aquila, after the Italian city was hit by a major earthquake.

Now, he is expected to use his designs and expertise to help reconstruction efforts in Ecuador. The cardboard tubes are, by now, a Ban signature. He used them in Japan in 2014, to partition a large gym and provide privacy for the people staying after a quake.

Emergency buildings often face a land space problem, Ban once noted, since they have long been conceived as single-floor structures spread across a large area. But this too he has begun to address: In 2014, he used ordinary containers to built three-story structures on a baseball field in Japan.

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Society

Exploiting Auschwitz — How Poland's Ruling Party Reached A New Low

Poland's ruling party has used the Nazi concentration camp, which was located in a Polish town, in one of its political campaigns to sully its opponents. It's the latest step that the ruling government is taking to attack an opposition march planned for this Sunday against a law that some say threatens democracy.

Image of the entrance gate with 'Arbeit Macht Frei' inscription in the former Nazi German Auschwitz I concentration camp at Auschwitz Memorial Site, in Oswiecim, Poland.

The entrance gate with the inscription 'Arbeit Macht Frei' (Work Will Set You Free) in the former Nazi German Auschwitz I concentration camp at Auschwitz Memorial Site, in Oswiecim, Poland.

Beata Zawrzel/ZUMA
Bartosz T Wielinski

-OpEd-

WARSAW — The short video ad hit social media on Wednesday. It begins with a clip of the railroad of Auschwitz-Birkenau, where Jews from all of Nazi-occupied Europe were transported. It is the place where those deemed unfit to work — including the elderly and mothers with children — were taken to gas chambers and murdered with zyklon B. In another shot, the release shows a clip of Auschwitz’s gates with their mocking inscription — “Arbeit Macht Frei" (Work will set you free.)

It is against this backdrop that Poland's right-wing ruling Law and Justice party (PiS) chose to show a recent tweet made by Polish journalist Tomasz Lis, who criticized the ruling party’s controversial anti-Russian investigative committee, stating “there will be a chamber for Duda and Kaczor”.

In his tweet, Lis was referring to criticisms from the Polish opposition that the new committee, also being referred to as the “Tusk Law”, will be used to target political rivals, rather than Russian colluders. Lis has since apologized for his statement, and the tweet has been removed from his social media.

“Is this the slogan you want to march under?” — asks the speaker in the advertisement, as the screen shows the date of June 4th. This is how PiS is reacting to the mass mobilization of Poles, who have agreed to come together and demonstrate against its anti-democratic policies in Warsaw.

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