A professional boxer, a self-taught architect, and a Pritzker prize winner, Tadao Ando uses concrete, light, and ventilation as his major design tools. He learned a lot about architecture by travelling.
” The use of water in my architecture is an attempt to bring to bear a spiritual dimension directly related to the Japanese thought of tradition.”
He tries to inculcate the social demands of contemporary times while preserving continuity with the past or with a region’s cultural climate and traditional environment. Ando’s poetic dimension of silence should be understood as an outstanding design, a unified concept, and relevant to the future art of building.
Here are 15 notable projects by Tadao Ando.
1. Azuma House, Osaka,(1975-1976) | Tadao Ando
Also known as the Sumiyoshi row house, it has a rectangular plan divided into three parts with rooms at the front and back, connected by a bridge, through the courtyard dedicated to the play of wind and light. Composed of an austere geometry and a solid concrete facade towards the street, it has no openings on the side walls.
He proposed a new lifestyle in coexistence with nature and individual privacy. He says his objective was to challenge the inertia that has invaded our everyday lives.
2. Koshino House, Ashiya City, (1890-1981), (1983-1984)
The Koshino house consists of two parallel rectangular concrete boxes connected by a tunnel under the exterior staircase. The boldly curved study area was a later addition that further complements the space.
The house is manifested in a way that does not hinder the existing natural setting, as it is partially buried in the ground. It has a commendable play of lights and shadows through various apertures in the walls and ceilings to create an “architectural landscape,” as he puts it.
3. Rokko Housing I, II, III, Kobe, (1981-1983), (1987-1993), (1997-1998)
The site was at a 60-degree slope at the edge of the Rokko Mountains in Kobe. The idea was to create and strengthen the relationship between natural, public, and private spaces.
The first-phase complex is a 3D grid with 20 apartment units that step back on the hillside, using lower-level roofs as terraces.
The second complex based on the vertical overlapping of square grids has created unexpected views. Three types of gardens respectively private, communal, and the public in nature are provided to generate various communal relationships.
The third phase is a large project with communal spaces between buildings designed as crisscrossing plazas.
4. Church of Light, Osaka, (1999) | Tadao Ando
It consists of a rectangular volume of three cubes punctured by a wall at a 15-degree angle that never actually touches the other walls or ceiling of the chapel. It is an architecture of duality – the dual nature of existence. The cruciform cut on the eastern wall allows light to enter the darkness induced by the use of concrete.
The church designed by Tadao Ando is a remarkable example of the architecture of minimalism creating a humble abode of peace and tranquillity. The use of concrete and the effect of light is so well thought out that it stimulates the user to forget the outside world, giving a sense of oneness within the society.
5. Museum of Wood, Hyogo, (1993-1994)
The museum is shaped like a truncated cone, enclosed by a circular pond in the middle of the timber pavilion. Over this pond runs a suspended bridge that takes visitors inside.
It celebrates the relationship between humankind. “The flashes of light coincide with the close proximity of extinction: the object appears and takes the form at the edge between light and darkness,” he says.
6. Suntory Museum and Plaza, Osaka, (1992-1994)
The building consists of an overturned truncated cone volume intersected by rectangular solid bodies. It houses an art gallery, a 3D IMAX cinema, several shops, and a restaurant. The walkway surrounding the area and the lobbies overlooking the space allow us to clearly perceive the curvature of its volume.
It rests on the Mermaid Plaza, featuring a series of pedestrian paths, ramps, and stairways and a semi-circular amphitheatre. This project allows a close relationship with water, which is a daily part of our lives. With this project, he once more worked on his favourite subject: the relationship between man, nature, and architecture.
7. Sayamaike Historical Museum, Osaka, (2001)
The structure is partially buried underground aligned with the gradual slope of the site. Following a path along the waters of Sayamaike, lined with cherry blossom trees, visitors pass a wall of rough granite blocks to arrive at a concrete plaza with cascading waterfalls and pools.
Tadao Ando decided to integrate the surrounding environment into the architecture to create a place appropriate to the history that Sayamaike embraces, where the environment itself becomes a museum, as he said.
8. Pulitzer Foundation for arts, Missouri, (2015)
It is the institution that calls itself “a sanctuary for the ever-evolving experience of art”. Through carefully composed windows and a central water court, the building is suffused with natural light, inviting the outside world into dialogue with art and architecture.
It was built in 2001, and later additions in the form of galleries in the building’s lower level, overlooking and looping the signature water feature with the aim of improving visitor movement, were done in 2015. The use of Concrete and wood is more prevalent, giving the new galleries the calmness and serenity Ando was striving for.
9. Water temple, Hyogo, (1999)
It has a passageway that divides a pool of water filled with lotuses, a symbol of Japanese tradition, into symmetrically two parts. The stillness of the water has a meditative effect and perhaps implications for spiritual cleansing.
The staircase in the passage with whitewashed walls leads to the sanctuary where the Amida Buddha statue resides. The central sanctum is all red-orange in color, creating an aura of its own. This Japanese temple designed by Tadao Ando is an extraordinary example of the radically changing Japanese temple architectural style.
10. Awaji Yumebutai, Hyogo,(2000)
It consists of the International Conference Center, which is surrounded by greenery, the Westin Awaji Island, which offers rest and relaxation, restaurants and shops with a very close connection to nature, the Observation Terrace, Oval Forum, and Circular Forum. It also includes the Kiseki no Hoshi Greenhouse, an outdoor theatre, and Koryu no Tsubasa Port, which serves as the entrance from the sea.
It is a one-of-a-kind “environment creation” project equipped with facilities that blend in with the magnificent landscape that takes advantage of a dynamic slope.
11. 4×4 house, Hyogo (2003)
These are a pair of houses designed by Tadao Ando, based on a composition of plot size of 4 x 4 meters and the glass facade that adorns it to define its distinctive character.
They were built on a site very close to the epicentre of an earthquake. By creating a pair of similar structures whose doors open toward the sea but are constructed from contrasting materials, concrete and wood, the connection of the architecture with the place is reinforced.
12. Naoshima Contemporary art Museum & Annex, Naoshima, (1995)
Located on a slope of a hill, the complex is divided into three sections. Immediately above the sea level lies a terrace gallery and above it the museum, hotel, restaurant, cafeteria, and lecture rooms. A small cable car leads to the annex arranged around an oval artificial pool.
The silence of architecture promotes the experience of living with nature. The design is based on the models of simple, symmetrical constructions.
13. Japan Pavilion Expo, Spain, (1992) | Tadao Ando
The pavilion aimed to acquaint people in the rest of the world with Japan’s traditional aesthetics, based on unadorned simplicity. By reinterpreting wood architecture with leading-edge contemporary technology, it created a building that embodied tradition and modernity, technology and culture. This pavilion was designed by Tadao Ando and constructed with materials, skills, and workmen gathered from the United States, Europe, and Africa.
14. Fabrica Research Center, Italy, (1993 to 1995)
The complex was a restoration of a villa, which included the creation of study areas, laboratories, offices, and facilities such as a library and auditorium, a cinema, meetings, and refreshment areas. The auditorium’s curved, bare concrete wall projects from the outer facade; towards the inner portico a large opening offers a view over the courtyard and the large pool on both sides of the new access path to the smaller barchessa.
Because of their particular character and dimensions, the transit areas play the role of both halls and galleries, waiting for areas and “places for communion and communication between people, history or nature”, said Tadao Ando.
15. 21 21 Design Sight Museum, Tokyo (2007)
Built in collaboration with fashion designer Issey Miyake, it features a steel roof inspired by his “A Piece of Cloth” concept, which explores the relationship between the human body and clothing. The split-level building with glass walls is meant to act as a space for examining how design impacts daily life.
Working from the theme of an architectural design rooted in nature, the main structure is underground, creating a graceful space above the ground.
