Originally posted on March 26th, 2014 on the TonyTacklesTokyo co-op blog. For more concerning the daily happenings of life at Shigeru Ban Architects, please visit http://www.tonytacklestokyo.com/.
TOKYO – I went to bed the night before knowing full well the next day would be different.
After a grueling week of trying to meet a model deadline for a hotel project in Niesko and a weekend of hard drinking in Shinbashi, I was thoroughly spent – not to mention victim of a deathly cough and a runny nose.
So, after working really late into Monday night, Makoto san (my supervisor) informed me that I was allowed to come in a little later the next day.
“Closer to noon, or after lunch,” he said.
I think he might have thought I was hazardously contagious, since I spent most of the day coughing and sneezing violently into scrunched up tissues. Thus, I was fully expecting to be quarantined by the notoriously mysophobic Japanese the next day.
Nonetheless, I was comforted by the fact that I was finally going to get a full night of sleep to recover and so I went to bed optimistic, expecting great things for the next day.
Little did I know.
7:30 am – Tuesday morning – my bed room – int.
My phone is going OFF THE CHAINS with messages. Jack is texting me from New York City, Danielle and Zunheng from Boston, Lisa from China. The messages all pretty much convey the same idea.
Shigeru Ban just won the Pritzker.
Holy shit, I thought as I sat down to pee (I was lightheaded from a combination of the flu, exhaustion, and the news).
One thing was certain, I damned sure wasn’t going to be sleeping in today.
By 8:40 I’m showered, dressed, and heading out the door and I arrive at the office about five minutes earlier than usual. Prior to that, I’m on Facebook with my friend Jack, who proposes that I bring a large bottle of sake. He also paints for me an imaginatively detailed scenario in which I get to the office on time to find all the architects already passed out drunk from jubilation and some sort of arson related incident occurs during which Ban san is sent to prison and the interns are sent to break him out.
However, when I arrive, there are perhaps only two or three people there – the usual level of attendance at 9:50 am – including Makoto san himself. Makoto san, however, is not surprised to see that I didn’t heed his advice at all and greets me like he usually would. And maybe it’s just me, but today there was a different glow coming from him. By 10:00 am all the staff are filing in with industrial-grade precision and another work day begins.
And that was pretty much the most exciting part of the day: that personal moment of anticipation when I fully expected to walk into a scene from The Wolf of Wall Street, with champagne, cocaine, and chimpanzees flying in all directions. But instead, all I got was the quiet confirmation from the staff around me that acknowledged yes, we did indeed win the Pritzker. It seemed like the Japanese architects here received the good news with the same amount of grace and elegance you would expect from Shigeru Ban’s own personal architectural mantra.
Later, when all the interns arrived we all put our heads together and gossiped excitedly like the little architecture groupie/fan boys we were.
“I totally didn’t expect Ban san to win!”
“Two Japanese architects in a row! What are the odds?”
“Who else can you think of that might get it?”
“Steven Holl?”
“Wolf Prix?”
“Richard Meier?”
“He already won once.”
“Oh.”
At that point, it was safe to say that we were the most excited bunch of the entire office. Alas, no sake bombs and wearing our neckties around the forehead today…
A lot of my friends have asked me incessantly, “What are the celebrations like?” or, “How hard are you guys going to party tonight?”
Even I spent the day at work expecting at any time for people to just drop everything, and start the celebration.
Maybe we can work a little less now. Maybe the work day will become less stressful. Or maybe we can even start going home before midnight. But looking around me, I could’ve sworn that this was just like any other work day. People worked with their back straight, fully concentrated, and fully dedicated with passionate fury.
Instead of seeming like an office that had just had the profession’s greatest honor bestowed upon it, one might’ve guessed that perhaps an earthquake just struck somewhere along a coastal city and we needed to get a bunch of disaster relief project drawings out the door ASAP.
And perhaps that’s really one of the quintessential attributes of a Pritzker-winning architectural office: that in the face of both great triumph and tragedy, to maintain the highest level of professionalism, dedication, and passion for whatever you’re about to build next.
…
On a side note, upon receiving the news that Shigeru Ban had just won the Pritzker, one of the first things I did was call my mom and brag about the office I’m working at.
Of course, to illuminate the magnificence of this award I had to explain it to her in proper terms that she would understand.
“Mom, you know the Nobel prize? Yeah, yeah. This thing, the Pritzker, it’s like the equivalent of a Nobel prize. But for the field of architecture. No. No. What? No. It’s not an actual Nobel prize.
It’s like, if you win a Pritzker, it’s as if you won the equivalent of a Nobel prize.
But for architecture. It’s a really big deal, mom.
And so yeah, the head of my office here. You know the guy I’m working for? In Tokyo? Shigeru Ban is his name. Yeah, that’s right. Shigeru Ban Architects. And he won this year!”
And in true Asian mom fashion this was her reply to me.
“Why didn’t you win?”