Shigeru Ban wins 2024 Praemium Imperiale Award

Internationally renowned Japanese architect Shigeru Ban has won the Architecture category of the 2024 Praemium Imperiale Awards.

Shigeru Ban photographed at Toyota City Museum, April 2024 (photo: The Japan Art Association/The Sankei Shimbun).

Shigeru Ban has been announced as the winner of the Architecture category of the 2024 Praemium Imperiale Awards. Renowned for his innovative work with timber, paper and bamboo structures, Ban is as celebrated for designing Centre Pompidou-Metz, Aspen Art Museum and Mt. Fuji World Heritage Centre as he is for establishing the NPO Voluntary Architects Network (VAN) in 1995.

VAN and Shigeru Ban Architects have carried out disaster relief activities for nearly 30 years, providing temporary shelter, partition systems, community centres and spiritual places for victims of natural disasters and conflicts in countries, including Rwanda, Syria, Turkey India, China, Italy, Haiti and Ban’s native Japan.

Toyota City Museum, 2024 (photo: The Japan Art Association/The Sankei Shimbun).

Most recently, Ban supplied his Paper Partition System for shelters for Ukrainian refugees inside Ukraine, neighbouring Poland and Slovakia, as well as Germany and France. The system ensures privacy for inhabitants and has been used in numerous evacuations centres for major earthquakes in Japan, as well as the 2023 Turkey-Syria earthquake.

Currently, Ban is involved in building a new surgical wing for the main hospital in Lviv, the largest in Ukraine, which is in urgent need of expansion in order to respond to the exponential increase of patients since the Russian invasion.

La Seine Musicale, 2017 (photo: Shun Kambe/The Japan Art Association).

Since 1989, the Praemium Imperiale Awards have been given annually in the categories of Painting, Sculpture, Architecture, Music and Theatre/Film; covering fields of achievement not represented by the Nobel Prizes. Each Laureate receives an honorarium of 15 million Yen (c. £73,000). The awards are given by the Japan Art Association under the honorary patronage of HIH Prince Hitachi, younger brother of the Emperor Emeritus of Japan.

Installation in Lviv, 2024, Ukraine (photo courtesy of Voluntary Architects’ Network + Shigeru Ban Architects).

Other recipients of Praemium Imperiale 2024 Awards were Sophie Calle (painting), Ang Lee (theatre/film), Maria João Pires (music), and Doris Salcedo (Sculpture). Previous British winners include David Hockney, Mona Hatoum, Anish Kapoor, Antony Gormley, Norman Foster, Richard Rogers, David Chipperfield, Judi Dench, Anthony Caro and Tony Cragg.