Architect Shigeru Ban is Designing Three Glass Pyramids in the US

Shigeru Ban, the Japanese recipient of the prestigious Pritzker Prize for architecture, has been tasked with designing an unusual space based around bourbon. He has created a series of three pyramids which will house a distillery and discovery centre for tourists.

The majority of the global production of bourbon, a type of American whisky made from corn and aged in an oak barrel, is done in the state of Kentucky, its region of origin (and of which the county of Bourbon is part). Like the wine route in Alsace or the sake route in Japan, Kentucky has its own bourbon trail, a route on which you can visit distilleries, sample the drink and learn more about the process of making it.

To attract a new clientele and stand out from the competition, Stoli Group (the owners of the brand Kentucky Owl Bourbon) commissioned Shigeru Ban to create all the plans for a unique space where every element would be linked to bourbon and its history. But there was one constraint: the space, spread over an area of 170 hectares, had to be a centre of industry (with a distillery and a factory for bottling) and a major tourist centre.

Shigeru Ban is known for his eclectic projects: known worldwide for his involvement in ‘social’ projects in response to crisis situations (such as his use of cardboard tubes to build homes in refugee camps in Rwanda, or the reconstruction of Onagawa Station in Japan, destroyed in the 2011 tsunami), he also designed the Centre Pompidou in Metz and the headquarters for the social branch of the private media group, Tamedia, in Switzerland.

The three pyramids the architect proposed to Stoli Group will be accompanied by new warehouses where the whisky will be aged and draw inspiration, in terms of their exterior and also interior details, from traditional, 19th century industrial buildings. Steel, the preferred material back then, will be replaced by wood (for environmental and aesthetic reasons, to make the space blend in better with the landscape). And although the three pyramids look similar, each one will have its own unique point: the first pyramid is fully glazed, the second one is half glazed and half cladded by opaque elements, and the last one is mainly covered with opaque elements with few glazed elements.