Former boxer and a self-taught architect, Tadao Ando (Osaka, Japan, 1941) is considered to be one of the masters of contemporary architecture. Monumental, abstract, and essential, his extensive oeuvre – with over three hundred completed buildings – i

Luis Fernández-Galiano   Tadao Ando’s perfection is painful. His concrete constructions, austere and naked like luminous cells, attain such geometric and material precision as to hurt the senses with the cold cutting edge of their inhumane exactitude, and the excessive and e

Kenneth Frampton   Material austerity, importance of light, and connection with nature are key aspects of the existentialist work of the Japanese master.  

Tadao Ando   Japan   The district of Sumiyoshi, a working class neighborhood of Osaka, is characterized by a dense urban fabric of row houses built with timber structural frames. The project consisted in demolishing one of those traditional buildings and replacing it wit

Tadao Ando   Japan   A steep hill at the foot of Mount Rokko, facing south and with panoramic views from Osaka Bay all the way to the Port of Kobe, was the site chosen for this residential complex built over the course of two decades. In spite of having been completed i

Tadao Ando   Japan   The site is located on a verdant slope in Ashiya, Hyogo Prefecture. It is a house for a well-known Japanese fashion designer. Taking on the abundant nature of the local environment, and a program with a high degree of freedom, the project aimed to ge

Tadao Ando   Japan   Shortly after completing Tomishima House, his first work, Tadao Ando bought the property to turn it into his atelier. The subsequent extensions were carried out in different phases, producing a discontinuous and labyrinthine space that is a long way

Tadao Ando   Japan   The site is located in a quiet residential district in Setagaya ward. It is a three-household residence for the client couple and their respective parents. While ensuring privacy and independence for each family, the housing plan allows the three hou

Tadao Ando   Japan   island of Hokkaido, in northern Japan. On a plain surrounded by mountain ranges and a dense forest of beech trees and shrubs, the building comprises two superposed cubes, a rectangular artificial lake, and a long L-shaped wall enclosing the complex.

Tadao Ando   Japan   Ibaraki, a residential district defined by a generic suburban pattern, is located within the metropolitan area formed by the cities of Kyoto, Osaka, and Kobe. The commission for the design and construction of this church for Ibaraki was determined by

Tadao Ando   Japan   The regeneration of Naoshima, a small island on Seto Inland Sea, is a cultural project that was launched in the second half of the 1980s. The first building within this initiative was Benesse House Museum, an ‘overnight stay’ museum that includes lod

Tadao Ando   Japan   The temple of Water, the main one of Ninnaji Shingon, the oldest branch of tantric Buddhism in Japan, rests on a hill with views over Osaka Bay. The project proposes a sensory experience, a shift from the ordinary world to the sacred space. The appro

Tadao Ando   Japan   The site is located in a historical park established in a deep green valley in Osakaʼs Minamikawachi district, well known in Japan as an area containing a cluster of kofun (mounded tombs). The stone arrangements of more than a hundred tombs remain in

Tadao Ando   Spain   Following the theme of the 1992 Expo in Seville, ‘The Age of Discovery,’ the pavilion was conceived as a highly refined place that had to unify the traditional culture of Japan and advanced technology and, furthermore, enhance interactions that excee

Tadao Ando   United States   The site is located in a quiet residential district close to the center of Chicago. Along this long, narrow north-south oriented site, the objective was to produce a comfortable and private residential space while developing an interaction with the n

Tadao Ando   Italy   In spite of being an international fashion company, Benetton still preserves its original headquarters in Treviso, a small town in the northwest of Italy located little more than an hour by car from Venice. On this site the company commissioned the d

Tadao Ando   Japan   On 17 January 1995, an earthquake struck Osaka Bay taking 6,000 lives, with Awaji Island as epicenter. Yumebutai, a project for the island whose construction was slated to begin at that time, had to be remodelled after the disaster, so that it would

Tadao Ando   France   This space was designed as a commemorative project for the fiftieth anniversary of the establishment of the UNESCO. The brief requested a ‘space of meditation’ for global peace, transcending all religions. The pavilion is located within the complex o

Tadao Ando   Germany   On an island of a pond outside Düsseldorf, the German art collector Karl-Heinrich Müller founded a museum called Insel Hombroich: a large sculpture park of twenty hectares dotted with several exhibition pavilions designed by sculptor Erwin Heerich. Y

Tadao Ando   Japan   Ueno Park, a gift from the Imperial family to the city of Tokyo, is a large public space where several cultural institutions are located. One of them, the old Imperial Library, was transformed into a library for children. The old building has a pseud

Tadao Ando   Germany   Located amid gently rolling hills in western Germany, this is a small museum for exhibiting the work of sculptor Wolfgang Kubach and his wife Anna Maria Kubach-Wilmsen, world-famous for their stone sculptures. A gabled-roof barn, built in the 18th ce

Tadao Ando   United States   The Upper East Side in Manhattan is known since the early 20th century as the luxury residential area of culture. The project, located on the southeast corner of Lexington Avenue with Gramercy Park, remodels a penthouse gallery on the top floor of a

Tadao Ando   United States   The proposal was selected in an international design competition held in 1997. The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth is part of a cultural complex located in an urban park on the outskirts of the city, and just a few meters from a masterpiece of modern

Tadao Ando   Japan   This is a memorial hall for writer Ryotaro Shiba, a figure representative of postwar Japan. The curved pavilion is on a site adjacent to the garden of the writer’s own residence, located in a quiet residential area on the outskirts of Osaka. The buil

Tadao Ando   Italy   This detached dwelling is located amid the rich natural environment on the outskirts of Treviso, Italy. The commission included both site planning and layout, so the project allowed great flexibility and freedom. The only request presented by the cli

Tadao Ando   Japan   The island of Naoshima is home since 1992 to the Naoshima Contemporary Art Museum, turning these 800 hectares of land overlooking Japan’s Inland Sea – southwest of Osaka and only accessible by ferry – into a culture-oriented tourist destination. A re

Tadao Ando   Japan   It was a magazine for men that paired the client with the studio in the case of this singlefamily house built in the Japanese city of Kobe. The invitation asked readers to submit a brief outline of their ideal home on a postcard. If aside from this t

Tadao Ando   United States   This is an expansion project for the Clark Art Institute, founded in 1955 by Sterling and Francine Clark. The prominent American art research institute is known for its collection of 19th century impressionist painting. The 57 hectares of hilly prope

Tadao Ando   Japan   Tokyo Midtown is the result of a long redevelopment project on the former site of the Defense Ministry in the Roppongi district of Tokyo. Constructed in a public park in the northwest part of this recovered area, this gallery for exhibitions on the t

Tadao Ando   Italy   After winning the international competition for the Fondation François Pinault pour l’Art Contemporain in Paris, this project had to be abandoned due to a series of problems. Shortly after, the studio received a new commission from the client in Veni

Tadao Ando   Italy   Surrounded by important historical buildings, among which the nearby Basilica of Santa Maria della Salute, the old customs building was raised in the 17th century by the architect Giuseppe Benoni at the entrance of the Grand Canal of Venice, on a tri

Tadao Ando   France   The château La Coste Winery is located 15 kilometers north of the old town area of Aix-en-Provence in southern France. The project included the restructuring of the complex to transform it into a garden museum dotted with outdoor sculptures and pavil

Tadao Ando   Mexico   Located in the second largest industrial city in Mexico, the University of Monterrey is a private institution with more than 12,000 students. Its large campus was rounded off with this building, the RGS Center, designed for newly-established schools

Tadao Ando   China   The project is an opera house in a cultural complex that is anticipated to shape the core of the cultural zone of Jiading New Town, a suburb which is developing rapidly based on its car industry, and that is 30 km northwest of Shanghai. Owing to the

Tadao Ando   Mexico   Located in A natural landscape, with the Pacific Ocean to the south and the mountains to the north, this residence-studio was designed for a Mexican artist who divides his time between New York and his home country. The first project decision was to

Tadao Ando   United States   The same client of the house in Chicago contacted the studio for a new commission on the plot adjacent to the dwelling. On this occasion, the project involved the conversion of a residential building, built in the early 20th century, into a contempor

Tadao Ando   China   The client – a prominent businessman from Foshan – wished to contribute to the cultural scene of his home city, and decided to promote the construction of a museum for his personal collection, ranging from traditional Oriental art to modern art. Fro

Tadao Ando   Japan   After a long and fruitful career, Tadao Ando decided that it was time for him to make an altruistic contribution to Osaka, the city where he was raised and developed as an architect. Ando wanted to pay tribute to the children of Osaka, the next gener

Tadao Ando   France   The old grain exchange in Paris, built by Nicolas Le Camus de Mézières between 1763 and 1766, was crowned with an iron dome of 60 meters in diameter in the 19th century, when the building became the stock exchange by Henri Blondel’ s renovation and c