Ando, Tadao (1941-…), is a Japanese architect noted for his unique use of space within a building. Working mostly in reinforced concrete, he creates enclosed spaces within his structures in ways that allow the introduction of shifting patterns of light and wind. Ando’s buildings avoid reference to current fashionable trends and instead employ fundamental pure forms with minimal decorative detail. His designs are mostly based on rectangles cut by curved or angled walls.
Ando won the 1995 Pritzker Prize, the most prestigious international award in architecture (see Pritzker Architecture Prize). The Pritzker Prize jury praised Ando for “creating buildings with form and composition related to the kind of life that will be lived there…. There is never a predictable moment as one moves through his buildings…. Originality is his medium and his personal view of the world is his source of inspiration.”
Beginning in the early 1980’s, Ando’s designs exploited the natural settings of the buildings, such as ocean views or placement on the side of a mountain. Ando has designed homes, apartment buildings, museums, places of worship, and shopping centers and malls. Ando’s buildings include the Japan Pavilion at Expo ’92 in Seville, Spain (1992); the Children’s Museum in Hyogo, Japan (1989); and the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts (2001) in St. Louis, Missouri. He also designed several buildings in Osaka, Japan, including the Church of Light (1989), the Raika Headquarters Building (1989), and the Water Temple (1991). In addition, he designed commercial and residential buildings throughout Japan, especially in the Osaka, Hyogo, and Kobe areas. Ando also designed a highly praised building for the Museum of Modern Art in Fort Worth, Texas. The building opened in 2002. Ando’s Stone Hill Center, a combination of galleries and art conservation laboratories, opened in 2008 at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Massachusetts. In addition, Ando designed a maritime museum on an island in the United Arab Emirates that will be part of a multibillion-dollar project called the Cultural District of Saadiyat Island.
Ando was born on Sept. 13, 1941, in Osaka, Japan. He served as apprentice to various designers but found that he learned more from reading books on architecture and looking at the buildings themselves. He traveled throughout Japan and made many trips to Africa, Europe, and the United States, observing and making detailed sketches of the famous buildings that interested him. He studied the temples, shrines, and teahouses of his homeland and the great monuments of Western civilization. In 1969, he became the founder and director of his own architectural practice, Tadao Ando Architect and Associates. After that, he was a visiting professor of architecture at the American universities of Columbia, Harvard, and Yale.
