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Shigeru is one of today's most important architects.
He studied in the United States
and comes from Japanese tradition.
He worked with Arata Isozake,
who worked with Kenzo Tange.
But his main inspiration is the architect Frei Otto,
who was very important and he's about 80 years old now.
What I find striking in Shigeru,
first of all, is his principle
that in order to have a strong structure
you don't need strong materials.
The rigidity of the structure is dictated by the form you use.
It reminds me a lot of Buckminster Fuller,
his geodesics and shelters, which also shared that same principle.
And both have a political principle, too:
the lighter the structures, the more moveable they are.
Buckminster Fuller's ideal, for instance,
was that a person could move their house around,
put it in a kind of trailer and go to other places,
because he said American conservativeness
was due mostly to rigidity of place.
Shigeru works often
and indiscriminately for sophisticated clients
as well as for risk areas after catastrophes.
He has developed a fantastic paper structure system,
he also works with plastic,
and he has a group called VAN.
Which is a very different thing from our vans:
Voluntary Architects Network.
And his works are done according to the region.
In Haiti, for instance...
it'll be interesting because Sérgio Magalhães,
who'll come with Augusto Ivan, also worked in Haiti.
he sent architects prior to see what constructive systems
there were in the area, before designing.
I think that, beyond the excellence of his architecture,
he gives us a clue
as to what role an architect can play
in popular and social housing.
Well, I don't want to delay you from listening to him any longer.
I'll send him in. Shigeru.
I'd like you to turn off your cell phones.
And also I wanted to tell you
that after his lecture we will open for written questions,
which will come to me, and I'll ask them. Thank you.