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is a Japanese
autodidact Autodidacticism (also autodidactism) or self-education (also self-learning and self-teaching) is education without the guidance of masters (such as teachers and professors) or institutions (such as schools). Generally, autodidacts are individu ...
architect An architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...
whose approach to
architecture Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing buildings ...
and
landscape A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, its landforms, and how they integrate with natural or man-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionary''. A landscape includes the ...
was categorized by architectural historian Francesco Dal Co as "
critical regionalism Critical regionalism is an approach to architecture that strives to counter the placelessness and lack of identity of the International Style, but also rejects the whimsical individualism and ornamentation of Postmodern architecture. The stylings ...
". He is the winner of the 1995
Pritzker Prize The Pritzker Architecture Prize is an international architecture award presented annually "to honor a living architect or architects whose built work demonstrates a combination of those qualities of talent, vision and commitment, which has produ ...
.


Early life

Ando was born a few minutes before his twin brother in 1941 in
Osaka is a designated city in the Kansai region of Honshu in Japan. It is the capital of and most populous city in Osaka Prefecture, and the third most populous city in Japan, following Special wards of Tokyo and Yokohama. With a population of ...
, Japan. At the age of two, his family chose to separate them, and have Tadao live with his great grandmother. He worked as a boxer and fighter before settling on the profession of
architect An architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...
, despite never having formal training in the field. Struck by the
Frank Lloyd Wright Frank Lloyd Wright (June 8, 1867 – April 9, 1959) was an American architect, designer, writer, and educator. He designed more than 1,000 structures over a creative period of 70 years. Wright played a key role in the architectural movements o ...
-designed Imperial Hotel on a trip to Tokyo as a second-year high school student, he eventually decided to end his boxing career less than two years after graduating from high school to pursue architecture. He attended night classes to learn drawing and took correspondence courses on
interior design Interior design is the art and science of enhancing the interior of a building to achieve a healthier and more aesthetically pleasing environment for the people using the space. An interior designer is someone who plans, researches, coordin ...
. He visited buildings designed by renowned architects like
Le Corbusier Charles-Édouard Jeanneret (6 October 188727 August 1965), known as Le Corbusier ( , , ), was a Swiss-French architect, designer, painter, urban planner, writer, and one of the pioneers of what is now regarded as modern architecture. He was ...
,
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe Ludwig Mies van der Rohe ( ; ; born Maria Ludwig Michael Mies; March 27, 1886August 17, 1969) was a German-American architect. He was commonly referred to as Mies, his surname. Along with Alvar Aalto, Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius and Frank Lloy ...
, Frank Lloyd Wright, and
Louis Kahn Louis Isadore Kahn (born Itze-Leib Schmuilowsky; – March 17, 1974) was an Estonian-born American architect based in Philadelphia. After working in various capacities for several firms in Philadelphia, he founded his own atelier in 1935. W ...
before returning to Osaka in 1968 to establish his own design studio, Tadao Ando Architects and Associates.


Career


Style

Ando was raised in Japan where the
religion Religion is usually defined as a social- cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatur ...
and style of life strongly influenced his architecture and design. Ando's architectural style is said to create a "
haiku is a type of short form poetry originally from Japan. Traditional Japanese haiku consist of three phrases that contain a '' kireji'', or "cutting word", 17 '' on'' (phonetic units similar to syllables) in a 5, 7, 5 pattern, and a '' kigo'', or ...
" effect, emphasizing nothingness and empty space to represent the beauty of simplicity. He favors designing complex spatial circulation while maintaining the appearance of simplicity. A self-taught architect, he keeps his Japanese culture and language in mind while he travels around Europe for research. As an architect, he believes that architecture can change society, that "to change the dwelling is to change the city and to reform society". "Reform society" could be a promotion of a place or a change of the identity of that place. Werner Blaser has said, "Good buildings by Tadao Ando create memorable identity and therefore publicity, which in turn attracts the public and promotes market penetration". The simplicity of his architecture emphasizes the concept of sensation and physical experiences, mainly influenced by Japanese culture. The religious term Zen, focuses on the concept of simplicity and concentrates on inner feeling rather than outward appearance. Zen influences vividly show in Ando's work and became its distinguishing mark. In order to practice the idea of simplicity, Ando's architecture is mostly constructed with concrete, providing a sense of cleanliness and weightlessness (even though concrete is a heavy material) at the same time. Due to the simplicity of the exterior, construction, and organization of the space are relatively potential in order to represent the aesthetic of sensation. Besides Japanese religious architecture, Ando has also designed Christian churches, such as the
Church of the Light The Church of the Light (sometimes called the "Church with Light") is the main chapel of the Ibaraki Kasugaoka Church, a member church of the United Church of Christ in Japan. It was built in 1989, in the city of Ibaraki, Osaka Prefecture. This ...
(1989) and the Church in Tarumi (1993). Although Japanese and Christian churches display distinct characteristics, Ando treats them in a similar way. He believes there should be no difference in designing religious architecture and houses. As he explains,
We do not need to differentiate one from the other. Dwelling in a house is not only a functional issue, but also a spiritual one. The house is the locus of heart (
kokoro is a novel by the Japanese author Natsume Sōseki. It was first published in 1914 in serial form in the Japanese newspaper ''Asahi Shimbun''. The title translated literally means "heart". The word contains shades of meaning—notions of the he ...
), and the heart is the locus of god. Dwelling in a house is a search for the heart (
kokoro is a novel by the Japanese author Natsume Sōseki. It was first published in 1914 in serial form in the Japanese newspaper ''Asahi Shimbun''. The title translated literally means "heart". The word contains shades of meaning—notions of the he ...
) as the locus of god, just as one goes to church to search for god. An important role of the church is to enhance this sense of the spiritual. In a spiritual place, people find peace in their heart (
kokoro is a novel by the Japanese author Natsume Sōseki. It was first published in 1914 in serial form in the Japanese newspaper ''Asahi Shimbun''. The title translated literally means "heart". The word contains shades of meaning—notions of the he ...
), as in their homeland.
Besides speaking of the spirit of architecture, Ando also emphasises the association between nature and architecture. He intends for people to easily experience the spirit and beauty of nature through architecture. He believes architecture is responsible for performing the
attitude Attitude may refer to: Philosophy and psychology * Attitude (psychology), an individual's predisposed state of mind regarding a value * Metaphysics of presence * Propositional attitude, a relational mental state connecting a person to a propo ...
of the site and makes it visible. This not only represents his theory of the role of architecture in society but also shows why he spends so much time studying architecture from physical experience. In 1995, Ando won the
Pritzker Prize The Pritzker Architecture Prize is an international architecture award presented annually "to honor a living architect or architects whose built work demonstrates a combination of those qualities of talent, vision and commitment, which has produ ...
for architecture, considered the highest distinction in the field. He donated the $100,000 prize money to the orphans of the 1995
Kobe earthquake The , or Kobe earthquake, occurred on January 17, 1995, at 05:46:53 JST (January 16 at 20:46:53 UTC) in the southern part of Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan, including the region known as Hanshin. It measured 6.9 on the moment magnitude scale and ...
.


Buildings and works

Tadao Ando's body of work is known for the creative use of natural light and for structures that follow natural forms of the landscape, rather than disturbing the landscape by making it conform to the constructed space of a building. Ando's buildings are often characterized by complex three-dimensional circulation paths. These paths weave in between interior and exterior spaces formed both inside large-scale geometric shapes and in the spaces between them. His " Row House in Sumiyoshi" (Azuma House, 住吉の長屋), a small two-story, cast-in-place
concrete Concrete is a composite material composed of fine and coarse aggregate bonded together with a fluid cement (cement paste) that hardens (cures) over time. Concrete is the second-most-used substance in the world after water, and is the most wid ...
house completed in 1976, is an early work which began to show elements of his characteristic style. It consists of three equal rectangular volumes: two enclosed volumes of interior spaces separated by an open courtyard. The courtyard's position between the two interior volumes becomes an integral part of the house's circulation system. The house is famous for the contrast between appearance and spatial organization which allow people to experience the richness of the space within the geometry. Ando's housing complex at Rokko, just outside
Kobe Kobe ( , ; officially , ) is the capital city of Hyōgo Prefecture Japan. With a population around 1.5 million, Kobe is Japan's seventh-largest city and the third-largest port city after Tokyo and Yokohama. It is located in Kansai region, whi ...
, is a complex warren of terraces and balconies, atriums and shafts. The designs for Rokko Housing One (1983) and for Rokko Housing Two (1993) illustrate a range of issues in traditional architectural vocabulary—the interplay of solid and void, the alternatives of open and closed, the contrasts of light and darkness. More significantly, Ando's noteworthy engineering achievement in these clustered buildings is site specific—the structures survived undamaged after the Great Hanshin earthquake of 1995.Goldberger, Paul
"Architecture View: 'Laureate' in a Land of Zen and Microchips,"
''The New York Times.'' April 23, 1995.
''New York Times'' architectural critic Paul Goldberger argues that:
Ando is right in the Japanese tradition: spareness has always been a part of Japanese architecture, at least since the 16th century; ndit is not without reason that
Frank Lloyd Wright Frank Lloyd Wright (June 8, 1867 – April 9, 1959) was an American architect, designer, writer, and educator. He designed more than 1,000 structures over a creative period of 70 years. Wright played a key role in the architectural movements o ...
more freely admitted to the influences of Japanese architecture than of anything American."
Like Wright's Imperial Hotel in Tokyo Second Imperial Hotel 1923-1968, which did survive the
Great Kantō earthquake Great may refer to: Descriptions or measurements * Great, a relative measurement in physical space, see Size * Greatness, being divine, majestic, superior, majestic, or transcendent People * List of people known as "the Great" *Artel Great (born ...
of 1923, site specific decision-making, anticipates seismic activity in several of Ando's Hyōgo-Awaji buildings.Bassin, Joan
"Frank Lloyd Wright's Imperial Hotel"
, National Building Museum exhibition.


Projects

File:Asahi Beer Oyamazaki Villa Museum of Art.jpg, Asahi Beer Oyamazaki Villa Museum of Art, Kyoto File:Ando Eychaner LeeHouse.JPG, Lincoln park house, Chicago File:Ft Worth Modern 03.jpg, Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, showing the reflecting pool File:Himeji City Museum of Literature01s3872.jpg, Himeji City Museum of Literature File:Azuma house.JPG, Azuma House File:View from Akita Museum of Art 2.jpg, View from Akita Museum of Art File:Rokko Mount Chapel Tadao Ando.jpg, Mount Rokko Chapel File:Suntory Museum11s3.jpg, Suntory Museum, showing the staircase and the inside structure File:Himeji City Museum of Literature03s3200.jpg, City Museum of Literature File:Chikatsu asuka museum02s3592.jpg, Chikatsu Asuka museum File:Awaji yumebutai08s3200.jpg, Awaji Yumebutai in Awaji, Hyogo prefecture, Japan File:Awaji yumebutai13bs.jpg, Awaji Yumebutai, showing the view and the stairs down File:Suntory Museum09n.jpg, Suntory Museum, the parallelepiped intersecting the spherical body of the IMAX theatre, shown in profile File:Rokko Housing Tadao Ando.jpg, Rokko Housing I and II, Kobe File:Vitra Conference Pavillon.jpg, Vitra Conference Pavillon File:Langen Foundation.jpg, Langen Foundation at night File:Hill of the buddha.jpg, alt=Hill of the Buddha, December 2015, Hill of the Buddha,
Sapporo ( ain, サッ・ポロ・ペッ, Satporopet, lit=Dry, Great River) is a city in Japan. It is the largest city north of Tokyo and the largest city on Hokkaido, the northernmost main island of the country. It ranks as the fifth most populous city ...
,
Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the n ...
, 2015


Awards


References


Literature

*Francesco Dal Co. ''Tadao Ando: Complete Works''. Phaidon Press, 1997. *Kenneth Frampton. ''Tadao Ando: Buildings, Projects, Writings''. Rizzoli International Publications, 1984. *Randall J. Van Vynckt. ''International Dictionary of Architects and Architecture''. St. James Press, 1993. *Masao Furuyama. “Tadao Ando”. Taschen, 2006. *Werner Blaser, “Tadao Ando, Architecktur der Stille, Architecture of silence” Birkhäuser, 2001. *Jin Baek, “Nothingness: Tadao Ando’s Christian Sacred Space”. Routledge, 2009.


External links


Tadao Ando official website

Architectural Record Magazine , Interviews , Tadao Ando
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Ando, Tadao 1941 births Living people People from Osaka * 20th-century Japanese architects 21st-century Japanese architects Kyoto laureates in Arts and Philosophy Pritzker Architecture Prize winners Osaka University of Arts alumni University of Tokyo faculty Columbia University faculty Recipients of the Royal Gold Medal Recipients of the Order of Culture Recipients of the Praemium Imperiale Members of the Académie d'architecture Commandeurs of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres Japanese male boxers Honorary Members of the Royal Academy Recipients of the Legion of Honour Recipients of the AIA Gold Medal Domus (magazine) editors