(Above: Shigeru Ban at IAAC) Last Friday, 18 March, IAAC welcomed Shigeru Ban for our Open Lecture Series. Despite the difficult circumstances after the terrible earthquake in Japan the previous weekend, Mr. Ban presented ¨ Works and Humanitarian Activities ¨. In his presentation, Mr. Ban  shared with the audience projects like, the Paper House, the Nomadic Museum, the Centre Pompidou-Metz and more by giving a structural explanation as well as the conceptual background that supports his projects. He explained the  influence of modernism and Mies Van de Rohe, in terms of transparency and structural strategies, on his projects,  using the Farnsworth house and the Barcelona Pavilion as main examples. After the devastating earthquake in Japan the previous week,  it was interesting to see how Shigeru Ban is greatly involved in humanitarian works  with disaster relief projects such as Paper Log House (Kobe of Japan in 1995, Turkey in 2000, India in 2002), Paper Church (Kobe,1995), Tsunami Reconstruction Project (Kirinda, Sri Lanka, 2005), Temporary Elementary School (Chengdu, China 2008), L’Aquila Temporary Concert Hall (L’Aquila, Italy, in progress) and his proposal for temporary shelters in Japan. (Above: Director of IAAC, Vicente Guallart introducing Shigeru Ban) (Above: Shigeru Ban spoke in front of a full audience at IAAC)