In Christchurch, New Zealand, an innovative and symbolic structure
designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Shigeru Ban has just taken
shape: a ‘Cardboard Cathedral’ to stand in for the historic building
devastated by the earthquakes of September 2010 and February 2011.
An expert in disaster-zone building, Shigeru Ban has been exploringquestions about humanitarian and post-disaster responses fordecades. Shigeru Ban: Cardboard Cathedral backgrounds his
remarkable story and documents the construction of the cathedral– his largest post-disaster structure to date – in essays, architectural
drawings and specially commissioned photographs.
Originally conceived as a temporary building, the cathedral’sconstruction involved design challenges, structural innovations andhelp from the community; and the finished, now permanent structure
seems set to become an enduring symbol of Christchurch’s revival.
This book offers profound insights into great architecture and its socialrole – vital reading for anyone interested in contemporary architectureand for all those looking to what the future might hold for Christchurch.
Includes a foreword by the Very Reverend Lynda Patterson, Dean ofChristchurch Cathedral; an introduction by Shigeru Ban; an essay byProfessor of Design Andrew Barrie; architectural drawings by Yoshie
Narimatsu and Shigeru Ban Architects; documentary photographs byBridgit Anderson; full-colour plates by Stephen Goodenough; and anafterword by David Mitchell.

DISASTERRELIEFASMONUMENT
Shigeru Ban

When I finally acquired a sense of my position as an architect, I wasvery disappointed to realise that architects do not really contribute tosociety. This is because most of our clients are among society’s mostprivileged people. Looking back through history, we see that architects
have built religious structures or houses for the aristocracy. Thesedays, we design houses for the wealthy, head offices for corporations
and large public buildings. We build monuments that display to theworld something that is otherwise invisible – wealth and political power.
Architects have largely ignored the need to design houses for ordinary
people, and we have also been too busy working for the privileged
to design temporary housing for the victims of natural disasters.
Those people cannot afford to hire architects, and governments are
not interested in providing comfortable housing for them. But natural
disasters are often ‘man-made’ disasters. In earthquakes, for instance,
people are not killed directly by the shaking ground: they die incollapsing buildings. Their safety is the responsibility of architects;
thus, rebuilding after disasters is also our responsibility. And if
architects were more involved in designing temporary housing fordisaster victims, we could improve its quality.
I have been involved with many emergency housing projects, starting in
1994 when I developed shelters for refugee camps in Rwanda after thecivil war. Earthquakes and tsunamis constantly occur around the world,and I have worked to improve shelters and build temporary houses for
those who have lost their homes in such disasters. I have also worked
on bigger projects for the general public, such as a temporary church
in Kobe after the 1995 earthquake (it was only 150 square metres), anda temporary concert hall in L’Aquila, Italy. Although these two projects
were larger, they were not monumental buildings – their facilities weremeant to help small communities through stressful times.

6—7

The story of my involvement with Christchurch and its cathedral began
in May 2011. News of the February 2011 Christchurch earthquake had
had a huge impact in Japan, particularly because it caused the deathsof many Japanese language students. In recent years the numberof Japanese people studying and working abroad had diminishedsignificantly after peaking during the economic bubble of the 1980s.
Now this earthquake had taken even more of these students fromus. They were people who would have played an active part in theworld; there are no words to describe the hopelessness of losing theirprecious lives. It is especially difficult knowing that the Canterbury
Television (CTV) Building in which the twenty-eight students were
killed was not properly assessed after the quake the previous year,
in September 2010. For that reason, Christchurch was on my mind
– it was a place I wished to visit. The Japanese public’s concern for
Christchurch in early 2011 was erased, however, when an earthquake
shook Japan’s Tohoku region just eighteen days after the quake hit
Christchurch. The Christchurch earthquake disappeared from our news
headlines, remaining only in the minds of the families of its victims,
and I became busy working on improving privacy for families sleeping
in large gymnasia after the Tohoku quake. Then one day I received anemail from Christchurch.
Reverend Craig Dixon, who made the first contact with me, had comeacross a small article about me in a New Zealand design magazine. The
article was about the Paper Church in Kobe. In his email, Craig asked
what my fee would be to design a temporary building, like the one that I
had built in Kobe, to stand in for the collapsed ChristChurch Cathedral.
I immediately replied that if the cathedral were to be used for civic
events as well as religious ceremonies, I would not charge a fee. Craig
asked me to visit Christchurch as soon as possible, so two weeks later,
fitting it in with my volunteer efforts in Tohoku, I was on my way.

$59.99
235 x 165 mm, 240pp, colour and b+w illus, hardback
ISBN: 9781869407674
Published: August 2014