Friday, January 30, 2026 at 7:30 PM
Hammer Museum, Los Angeles
**Shigeru Ban** stands as one of contemporary architecture’s most radical humanists, fusing structural innovation with profound social commitment. A 2014 Pritzker Prize laureate, Ban pioneered the structural use of recycled cardboard tubes, beginning in the mid-1980s with exhibition designs and evolving into disaster relief architecture deployed across five continents. His Paper Log Houses, first realized for Vietnamese refugees after the 1995 Kobe earthquake, exemplify architecture's capacity for urgent social response. The 2013 Cardboard Cathedral in Christchurch—at 79 feet tall—demonstrates how “temporary” materials can achieve civic monumentality and community permanence. Ban's philosophy, “I don't like waste,” encapsulates his practice—transforming material economy into architectural poetry while maintaining unwavering commitment to humanitarian crises from Rwanda to Ukraine.