Tadao Ando

This highly original and personal exploration of Tadao Ando’s work, one of Japan’s leading architects, traverses both the physical and spiritual world. In 2012, Philippe Séclier visited Tadao Ando’s iconic Church of the Light, and was immediately compelled to journey around the world to further study the architect’s buildings. This unique presentation of Ando’s work is the result of what turned into a nine-year project to photograph 130 buildings. Walking around each structure, trying to find the proper framing, helped Séclier understand Ando’s genius for siting and composition. Loosely organized by chronology, each building is represented in numerous black and white images, arranged like a mosaic on the page. These fragmented views correspond to Ando’s own philosophy of the logic of structure and geometry. This “atlas” embraces not only the geographic but also thematic range of Ando’s oeuvre—from transit stations in Tokyo and Kobe to art museums in Fort Worth, Texas and Provence, France; from an artists’ retreat on the Mexican coast to the now-demolished Piccadilly Gardens in Manchester, England; from a theater in Milan, Italy, to an upscale restaurant in New York City. Séclier’s photographs of Ando’s numerous religious structures brilliantly illustrate his use of light and shadow to evoke spiritual depth and timelessness while his short texts offer concise observations of each building. A helpful appendix pinpoints the geographic diversity and range of Ando’s oeuvre.

This book showcases recent houses by the world-renowned Japanese minimalist architect, offering unprecedented access to his thought process through more than 100 photographs, line drawings, sketches, and plans. Tadao Ando is one of the best-known and most influential contemporary architects with a minimalistic aesthetic and love of natural materials like glass and concrete--proof that less is more. This volume features ten houses and examines his approach to these designs. Viewed as a collection, these houses serve to demonstrate the wide range of Ando's prodigious genius through lavish and striking photographs. Characteristics of his work include large expanses of unadorned architectural concrete walls combined with wooden or stone floors and large windows. He uses simple methods to solve complicated and small spaces and turns them into spaces with breathtaking landscapes. With precise and beautiful photographs accompanied by Tadao Ando's sketches, drawings, and plans, this volume presents several unseen and little published works, from the Bosco Studio and House facing the Pacific Ocean in Oaxaca, Mexico (2014)to a penthouse in Manhattan for a Japanese collector, completed in 2019.

A new edition of the acclaimed portfolio of work by Japan's leading architect, now featuring digitally remastered photographs. "The magnificent photographs by Richard Pare come as close to putting you there as any publication is likely to achieve." —The New York Times An exquisite work of art in its own right, this book is the result of ten years' collaboration between the English photographer Richard Pare and the internationally renowned Japanese architect Tadao Ando. This new edition features all the same extraordinary photographs, completely remastered from the original negatives, bringing this beautiful volume back to life. Pare's remarkable images shed new light on this important body of work, while Ando's original line drawings and sketches provide unparalleled insight into his creative process.

The minimalist concrete architecture of Tadao Ando has roots both in Japanese traditions and in Western architecture. This book begins with both contexts: it explores how Ando unites Japanese tradition with a contemporary Western architectural idiom. By analyzing systematically and chronologically the roots and sources that have influenced the thinking of the Pritzker Prize-winning architect, the author communicates the principles and constants to which Ando's buildings can be traced back, and at the same time he places them in the appropriate context within the architect's characteristic ideas and intentions. Yann Nussaume teaches at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure d'architecture in Paris and is the author of numerous publications on Japanese and Chinese architecture. Die minimalistische Betonarchitektur von Tadao Ando hat ihre Wurzeln sowohl in japanischen Traditionen als auch in der modernen westlichen Architektur. Genau bei diesen Zusammenhängen setzt das Buch an: Es untersucht, auf welche Weise Ando in seinem Werk japanische Tradition und zeitgenössische westliche Architektursprache vereint. Indem der Autor systematisch und chronologisch die Wurzeln und Quellen analysiert, die für das architektonische Denken des Pritzker-Preisträgers prägend sind, vermittelt er die zentralen Grundsätze und Konstanten, auf die sich Andos Bauten zurückführen lassen, und er stellt sie zugleich in den ihnen angemessenen Kontext der besonderen Denkweise und Intentionen des Architekten.

Based around an interview with Tadao Ando, this book explores the influence of the Buddhist concept of nothingness on Ando’s Christian architecture, and sheds new light on the cultural significance of the buildings of one of the world’s leading contemporary architects. Specifically, this book situates Ando’s churches, particularly his world-renowned Church of the Light (1989), within the legacy of nothingness expounded by Kitaro Nishida (1870-1945), the father of the Kyoto Philosophical School. Linking Ando’s Christian architecture with a philosophy originating in Mahayana Buddhism illuminates the relationship between the two religious systems, as well as tying Ando’s architecture to the influence of Nishida on post-war Japanese art and culture.

This comprehensive monograph on Pritzker Prize-winning architect Tadao Ando covers the span of his impressive career, with previously unpublished material and insight into his sources of inspiration. This in-depth monograph offers insight into Tadao Ando's sober and elegant architecture through photographs, architectural drawings, and descriptions of eighty of his most significant works. His notable works span the globe: London's Tate Modern; St. Louis's Pulitzer Arts Foundation; Osaka's Church of the Light; Paris's UNESCO Meditation Space; Venice's Palazzo Grassi; Abu Dhabi's Maritime Museum; and exceptional buildings in South Korea, Taiwan, China, Sri Lanka, Mexico, Germany, and throughout the United States. Japanese design principles--from the use of concrete, simple geometric volumes, and the integration of natural elements such as light or water--are essential elements that Ando uses to provoke a physical experience through his architecture. An interview with the architect accompanies his own writings and critical essays on various aspects of his work. A portfolio of Ando's black-and-white photographs and colored-pencil drawings from his previously unpublished travel notebooks provide new insight into his sources of inspiration. The book is completed with a biography and a chronology of his works to date, including some unrealized projects.

A complete catalogue of the work of the renowned Japanese architect.