The piece in this week’s issue that I enjoyed most is Dana
Goodyear’s “Paper Palaces.” It’s a profile of the architect Shigeru Ban.
Goodyear is an artful describer. She says of Ban, “He looks clicked together,
like a Lego figurine.” Her descriptions of Ban’s creations are delightful. For
example, she depicts his Aspen Art Museum as “a glass box nested in a lattice
screen made from resin-infused paper and topped with a timber truss roof.” Of
his Kobe cabins, she writes, “Pleasingly geometric, with an eco-friendly,
brown-rice look – smooth paper columns supporting crisp white canvas roofs – the
Kobe cabins have an aesthetic that lies somewhere between a Tinkertoy
masterpiece and a Seventh Generation diaper with operable windows.” My favorite
passage in “Paper Palaces” involves Goodyear herself. She and Ban are looking
at the Aspen Art Museum’s truss roof: “I said that the swooshing lines reminded
me of overlapping ski tracks. He looked at me blankly.” I smiled when I read
that. I relish its use of “I,” and I love the way she shows herself failing to
spark Ban’s response. I smiled again near the end of the piece when Goodyear
observes Ban at Tom McInerney’s Montana lot, listening to McInerney and Maltz
discuss design ideas. She says, “Who knew what he was thinking? ‘Do you have mayonnaise?’ he said finally.” Ban strikes me as a very cool guy. I enjoyed
“Paper Palaces” immensely.
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