Shigeru Ban uses wood “in abundance” at Toyota City Museum in Japan
Ban's ambition was to transform the site into a "museum zone", with the new building having its own visual identity but referencing the proportions of the existing art gallery.
"I wondered if the two sites could be made into a single museum zone, and by deliberately locating the new museum in the optimal position relative to the art museum, I could make it easier for visitors to understand and visit the two facilities and thus produce a synergistic effect," said Ban.
"If the art museum by Yoshio Taniguchi is a masterpiece of modernist architecture that makes abundant use of metal and glass and represents the latter half of the twentieth century, then the Toyota City Museum is its polar opposite – a work with an organic facade and space in which wood is used in abundance so that it contributes to the solving of the problem of the environment, the most important theme of the twenty-first century."