A tea house made out of paper and cardboard, designed by Japanese architect Shigeru Ban, is to be auctioned in London tomorrow.

The Paper Tea House is part of an sale of Japanese art and design being held by auctioneer Phillips de Pury & Company.

More info from the auctioneer follows:

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PAPER TEA HOUSE BY INTERNATIONALLY ACCLAIMED ARCHITECT, SHIGERU BAN TO BE SOLD AT PHILLIPS DE PURY & COMPANY’S KYOBAI: THE ART AND CULTURE OF JAPAN SALE ON APRIL 3

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

London –April 1– Phillips de Pury & Company is pleased to announce that it will be offering a important piece of architecture by one of the most celebrated architects working today, Shigeru Ban, in its forthcoming London sale, Kyobai: The Art and Culture of Japan.

A tea house, constructed of square paper tubes, is a structure designed for indoor use measuring just over 5 meters long. Housing a table and four stools, the house also features a waiting area with a bench in keeping with tea ceremony practice.

Shigeru Ban is a forerunning contemporary architect revisiting Western concepts of Modernism and traditional Japanese architecture conceiving some of the most elegant and inspired buildings across the globe. Dedicated to the exploration of basic geometric elements and innovative use of materials, Shigeru Ban has created unique structural solutions that employ a vision of rational and practical space with the utmost respect to the people that inhabit these spaces and a structure’s harmony with its environment.

The architect’s ‘paper architecture’ comprises an ongoing series of structures using paper tubes as the main building material. Spanning a number of uses from multiple refugee housing solutions for disaster zones in Rwanda, Japan, India and Turkey to a collaboration with Frei Otto for the Japan Pavilion at the Hanover Expo in 2000 to his current satellite office that that sits on the roof of the Pompidou Centre in Paris, the use of paper by Shigeru Ban has been a pivotal design solution with firm ethical footing.

Low-tech, adaptable and recyclable, the paper constructions address the current trend of high-tech, high-impact and unattainable design that has been so prevalent in the contemporary architecture. In addition, the use of the material presents, in each application, an engineering challenge that Shigeru Ban continually masters. His paper tube buildings have been admired for the ultimate breakaway from the confines of traditional materials to create light-filled, stimulating buildings with unsurpassed sophistication.

Paper tea house by Shigeru Ban will offered with pre-sale estimate of £20,000 – 30,000.

The sale will take place at the company’s European headquarters in London on April 3 at 6 pm.

Kyobai: The Art and Culture of Japan
Viewing: March 28 – April 3 from 10 am – 6 pm
Sale: April 3 at 7 pm

Phillips de Pury & Company
9, Howick Place
London SW1

www.phillipsdepury.com