Design

An Architect's Role in 'Creation From Catastrophe'

Amid disaster, natural or manmade, there is an opportunity to rebuild an entire city.
A house designed by Japanese architect Shigeru Ban for survivors of the 2015 earthquake in Nepal.Courtesy of the Royal Institute of British Architecture

It can take just one powerful disaster—natural or manmade—to flatten an entire city or town. In the Great Fire of 1666, a spark set London ablaze for four days, burning down 13,000 houses, 84 churches, and part of the London Bridge. Much more recently, the 2011 Tohoku earthquake triggered a massive tsunami that washed away the homes of 230,000 people and caused $300 billion in damages. Then in 2015, earthquakes in Nepal destroyed nearly 900,000 houses, along with 900 facilities and 8,300 schools by the government’s count.

But amid each tragedy, there is an opportunity: a blank slate, for architects to reflect on and rebuild an entire community. “A disaster zone where everything is lost offers the perfect opportunity for us to take a fresh look, from the ground up, at what architecture really is,” Pritzker Architecture Prize Laureate Toyo Ito said in a statement.