Question

Each year the Pritzker Architecture Prize (普立兹克建筑奖) goes to a star designer with a long list of attractive buildings around the world. This year’s winner is a little different.

Shigeru Ban has designed museums, homes and concert halls. But Ban is best known for a more simple kind of work: the temporary (暂时的) buildings for people who became homeless after disasters.

Ban may be the only designer in the world who makes buildings out of paper — cardboard paper tubes (管). Ban actually tested the strength of cardboard tubes, and said he was surprised by what he had discovered. He has used them to build temporary buildings in Japan, Haiti, China and elsewhere.

“After a disaster, the building material is going to be more expensive,” Ban explains. “But the paper tube is actually not a building material. It is cheap and plentiful. We can get the material easily anywhere. And unlike costs for traditional building materials, the price of paper tubes doesn’t jump after an earthquake or flood. The tubes are also lightweight, so you don’t need heavy machines to work with them.”

Ban started using cardboard paper tubes in the 1980s. At that time he had just graduated from the architecture school, and he was looking for a cheap substitute for wood. So he started reusing the paper cardboard tubes that were left over from rolls of paper in his office.

Ban was born in Tokyo and studied architecture in the U.S. before moving back to Japan to start his practice. Some of Ban’s temporary buildings have become permanent (永久的), like the paper church he built after the 1995 earthquake in Kobe, Japan.

1.The author uses the first paragraph to 　　　.

A. raise an argument B. give an introduction

C. give an example D. offer a description

2.What is special about Shigeru Ban?

A. He failed to get this year’s architecture prize.

B. He graduated from the best architecture school in the U.S.

C. He is good at building houses for homeless people.

D. He builds special houses for special groups of people.

3.Why did Shigeru Ban choose cardboard paper tubes?

A. Because they are cheap and easy to take away.

B. Because they are strong and last for a long time.

C. Because they are plentiful and look very beautiful.

D. Because they are common and hard to break.

4.What does the underlined word “substitute” probably refer to?

A. A new way of building houses by using wood.

B. A new method of producing cardboard paper tubes.

C. A new kind of building material to take the place of wood.

D. A new machine to produce a new kind of building material.

Answer 1