The Donald Keene Center of Japanese Culture - Visiting Fellows Spring 2000

Donald Keene Center Visiting Fellows

Spring 2000

OOKA Makoto (Poet)

Mr. Ooka is considered one of Japan’s finest poets and literary critics. Born 1931, he is the author of the popular poetry column Ori-ori no Uta, which has run daily on the front page of Asahi Shimbun for nearly 20 years. Mr. Ooka is a former president of Japan PEN Club (1989-93), professor of Japanese literature at Meiji University (1965-87) and National University of Arts & Music (1988-93), and member of the Advisory Board of Poetry International (Rotterdam). Mr. Ooka has received numerous awards, including: Officier, Ordre des Arts et des Lettres from the French government, Yomiuri Prize for Literature, Kikuchi Kan Prize, Hanatsubaki Prize, and Golden Wreath Prize. He is the author of various collections of poetry in Japanese, French, and English as well as collections of essays on Japanese and international literature.

Mr. Ooka visited New York with his wife (Fukase Saki, playwright and essayist) for one month in March, 2000. His activities included workshops and seminars with Columbia graduate students in Japanese literature (on kouta, imayo, and other forms of classical Japanese poetry), the Sen Lecture ( "Kuruma-za (Sitting in a Circle) - Thoughts on Japanese Group Mentality") at Columbia University, lectures/readings at Princeton University, Harvard University, and The Cooper Union, and at Japan Societies in New York, Boston and San Francisco.

BAN Shigeru (Architect)

One of Japan’s leading younger architects, Mr. Ban gained international attention for his low-cost quickly built relief structures, using durable cardboard tubing, built in Kobe immediately following the earthquake of January 1995. He has since constructed similar buildings for victims of earthquakes and other natural disasters in Turkey and Rwanda. BAN Shigeru

Born in 1957, Mr. Ban received his architecture degree from The Cooper Union (NY), following study at the Southern California Institute of Architecture. He worked in the architecture firm of Arata Isozaki (1982-83). In 1995, Mr. Ban established an NGO called Voluntary Architects Network (VAN) and soon afterward was made special consultant of the UN High Commission of Refugees (UNHCR). He is also active as a designer of private homes, apartment houses and public-housing developments, galleries, museums, railway stations for JR, and furniture and industrial designs.

Mr. Ban’s awards include: SD Architect of the Year (1985); Tokyo Society of Architects House Award (1993); Mainichi Design Prize (1995); Tokyo Journal Innovative Arts Award (1996); Shinkenchiku Magazine Yoshioka Award (1996); Intl. Architects Academy Ecopolis Award (1996); Japan Institute of Architects Best Young Architect of the Year Award (1997); JIA Tohoku Award (1998).

Mr. Ban presented a lecture entitled "Beyond Paper and Curtain: Architectural Works and Humanitarian Activities of Shigeru Ban" at Columbia University on April 24, 2000, which was co-sponsored by the Donald Keene Center and the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning & Preservation. Two days after his lecture at Columbia a large environmental structure of Ban's opened in the garden of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and remained as a tem porary installation in the MoMA until August. In June, Mr. Ban's design for the Japanese Pavilion opened at Expo 2000 in Hanover, Germany, and was acclaimed as the most successful Pavilion at the 2000 World's Fair.

Mr. Ban returned to Columbia in the fall semester of 2000 to teach an Architecture Studio course at Columbia. As part of this course, Mr. Ban graciously offered to have students accompany him to Turkey, where he was instrumental in constructing temporary shelters for the thousands of people who were left homeless after a massive earthquake struck in 1999. He completed his Visiting Fellow activities in February 2001, when he presented various public lectures at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, The Cooper Union, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Japan Society (New York), and the Graham Foundation/Architecture and Design Society of the Art Institute of Chicago.