Cardboard Cathedral architect wins equivalent of Nobel Prize for architecture

Cardboard Cathedral architect wins equivalent of Nobel Prize for architecture

Friday 4 Apr 2014

Shigeru Ban, architect of Christchurch’s Transitional (“Cardboard”) Cathedral, has won the Pritzker Prize. Ban is a world-class architect and expert in disaster-zone building. The new Cathedral is his largest post-disaster structure to date.

“The Pritzker Prize is the equivalent of the Nobel Prize for architecture, being awarded for lifetime contribution to the advancement of the art of architecture globally,” says Dr Andrew Barrie, professor at the University of Auckland’s School of Architecture & Planning and author of the forthcoming Shigeru Ban: Cardboard Cathedral (Auckland University Press).

“The Cardboard Cathedral now has the unique status as New Zealand's only building by a Pritzker-Prize-winning architect, cementing its position as among the most significant buildings in New Zealand’s architectural history.”

Built in Christchurch’s inner city, the Cardboard Cathedral stands in for the historic building devastated by the earthquakes of September 2010 and February 2011. Signalling the beginnings of renewal in the CBD, the Cathedral is the first new civic building completed since the quake and is built to last forever.

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