At the beginning of this year, with about a half-dozen such buildings successfully under his belt, the wake of the Hanshin Earthquake brought him to Nagata Ward in Kobe, where he conceived and built a church and 22 cabins for refugees. Erected in only five weeks at almost no cost--much of the material and all of the labor was donated--the cabins are utilitarian and comfortable; far more romantic and interesting than the government's prefab structures (although it is true that no one would want to live in them forever). The new Takatori church, however, is beautiful.

In structural terms, an oval wall of paper-tube columns supports a light plywood-frame roof with a domelike canvas tent over the center. The exterior walls are made of scaffolding covered with inexpensive translucent corrugated plastic. The floor is earthen tile. The entire building cost around [[yen]]10 million in materials--about one-fifth of an equivalent concrete structure--and should be allowed to remain indefinitely.

The church is located in the center of one of the most devastated areas of Kobe. When the original structure was destroyed in the earthquake, the site immediately became a center for volunteer efforts. Visiting there in February, Ban, who also acts as a consultant to the UNHCR (United Nations High Commission on Refugees) spoke with the priest and came up with the plan for the church and cabins.

"The prefab structures, containers and so on that most people are using in Kobe now have a low initial cost and can be quickly erected," says Ban, "but no one is thinking about what to do with them when they're no longer needed. In the case of my paper tube cabins, the paper can be recycled, used as fuel, or easily put to another good use."

Such thinking is rare in architects today. This years architecture award is for Shigeru Ban's contribution, not so much to the people of Takatori Church but to society as a whole--and especially to the architectural community for whom he is setting an example.