Tadao Ando

Ando, Tadao (1941– ). Internationally recognized largely self-educated Japanese architect. After travelling in Africa, Europe, and the USA he founded Tadao Ando Architect & Associates in Osaka in 1969. Drawing on traditional materials and vernacular styles, he also used modern techniques of construction, and produced the concept of ‘defensive architecture’ which turned away from the street and looked inwards A leader of Critical Regionalism, he was responsible for the Wall-House at Sumiyoshi, Osaka (1979—which exploits his interest in an architecture stripped to elemental minimals), the Rokko housing, Kobe (1983–93), the Church on the Water, Tomamu, Hokkaido (1988), the Naoshima Museum and Hotel, Kagawa (1990–5), the Museum of Wood, Mikata-gun, Hyogo (1993–4), UNESCO Headquarters, Paris (1994–5), and the Suntory Museum, Osaka (1994). The Naoshima complex shows how Ando employs rigorous geometries and concrete, yet responds with great sensitivity to the site. His Sayamaika Historical Museum, Osaka, was completed in 2002, and his Fort Worth Modern Art Museum, Fort Worth, TX, designed 1997, in 2003.

Bibliography

Ando (1989);
Blaser (2001);
Century, so C20 = twentieth century (1996);
Dal Co (1995);
Drew (1996);
Frampton (1991);
Futagawa (ed.) (1997, 2000);
Furuyama (1996);
Jodidio (1997a);
Pare (1996);
Zabalbeasoa et al. (eds.) (1998)

Tadao Ando , 1941-, Japanese architect, b. Osaka. The majority of his buildings are in Japan, and he is particularly known for religious structures and museums. Informally apprenticed to a Japanese master carpenter, Ando is otherwise self-taught. He traveled throughout Asia, Europe, and the Americas in the 1960s, reading and absorbing architecture firsthand. Ando opened his own firm in 1970 and a few years later achieved early public recognition for his house commissions. His work matured in the 1980s and by late in the decade he was creating outstanding public buildings, such as the spiritually resonant Church of the Light, Hokkaido, Japan, and Church on the Water, Osaka (both: 1988). By then, he had become widely known for his synthesis of modern Western architecture and an exquisite Japanese sensibility. At his best, Ando creates serenely austere, unornamented structures made of silky smooth concrete punctuated by sheets of plate glass. His works contrast simple masses and planes with the play of light and natural elements, emphasizing function, strength, and beauty. He won substantial acclaim for his first public commission in the United States, the handsome Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts, St. Louis (2001), and for the ambitious Modern Art Museum, Fort Worth, Tex. (2002), that features glass-walled pavilions that seemingly float upon a lagoon. Ando was awarded the coveted Pritzker Architecture Prize in 1995.

Bibliography: See his Architecture and Spirit (1999) and Light and Water (2002); R. Pare, Tadao Ando: The Colours of Light (2d ed. 2000); studies by F. Dal Co, ed. (1996) and P. T. Hien (1998).