Photos by Associated Press

Ban grew up in Japan and traveled to the United States at age 17, hoping to study architecture at Cooper Union in New York. But he learned upon arrival that the school didn't take foreign students, except as transfers. He discovered the Southern California Institute of Architecture, where he studied for several years, and eventually transferred to Cooper Union.

In 1985, he started his own practice in Tokyo. One of his earliest projects: A boutique for his mother, a fashion designer.

Now based in three cities, Ban says he felt nonetheless a little under-qualified for the Pritzker award.

"It's too early," he says. "I haven't achieved enough, so I am taking this as encouragement for my future work." He also says he wanted to be careful not to let the prize cause him to expand his offices and overstretch himself.

Ban muses that he gets similar satisfaction seeing people enjoy his most expensive designs or his simplest structures of paper.

"Sometimes people are so happy in my temporary shelters that they don't want to move out," he says. "And the same with my work for private clients. The satisfaction is the same - I just love to make nice spaces for people to enjoy."

Sponsored by the Hyatt Foundation, the annual Pritzker Architecture Prize was established in 1979 by the late entrepreneur Jay A. Pritzker and his wife, Cindy, to honor "a living architect whose built work demonstrates a combination of those qualities of talent, vision and commitment, which has produced consistent and significant contributions to humanity and the built environment through the art of architecture".