Mar 17, 20213 min read

Tadao Ando- artist research

Tadao Ando is a Japanese self-taught architect. After being a truck driver and boxer for a few years Tadao decided to follow the path of architecture, something he had been passionate about. Tadao had read a plethora of books on architecture, and also travelled the world in order to see these world-renowned works of architects from the likes of Le Corbusier, Frank Lloyd Wright and Mies van der Rohe. Tadao’s style is very stripped back, he creates quite empty spaces, often quite large furthering that sense of emptiness. The spaces have a lot behind them even though that cannot be seen on the surface, and that fits perfectly with Tadao’s ideas. He wants people to feel something in these spaces, often talking about buildings that you can feel through the five sense, also a space where you’re encouraged to look inwards, where the mind also gets to experience something. A building that will meets the demands of both the physical and spiritual. These concept that ultimately shape Ando’s building can be traced back to his culture. His philosophy is that architecture shouldn’t be too showy, and that nature should be what come’s through, especially light. When it comes to common material this is an easy one, it’s concrete and light, Tadao has been so accustomed to concrete that he even has his own recipe for it- the Ando concrete. I personally really like his work, especially his Polygrand theatre in Shanghai. Ironically it is probably the building that’s strays away the most from his principles, there’s still the fluidity and continuity with the water but, there’s a lot of glass and wood and its most definitely showy. I think that overall, that is the type of architecture I’m most attracted to at the moment, the very stripped back style is beautiful, but I think it cannot be appreciated the way it’s supposed to be, you really need to be there as Ando says his building are for the 5 sense. Now of course no architecture can really be fully appreciated without being there but having a building full of forms and outlandish lines satisfies the seeing sense a lot more. Now from what I’ve gathered his buildings inspire awe in whoever experiences it, some even reporting that they were disturbed when entering the church of light because the space is so empty and compared to a normal church that is full of ornaments the church of light is empty, but again that fits Ando’s concept, the space encourages reflection. His buildings can be compared to those of Louis Kahn I think, after all he was inspired by him. Both have those very bold basic shapes (square, rectangle, triangle and circle). They also both have concrete and light as there main building material. However, the emptiness of the spaces is not something that Kahn shares with Ando, someone like Peter Zumthor would be more appropriate to compare with in that manner. What I’ll take from Ando is the respect of his surrounding, to the point where it shaped his buildings. I also really like his focus on making buildings an experience for all the five sense, I interpret that as him wanting the most back to the people who walk through his spaces, that’s what I want to do as well, give back to the person, give them an experience something that is remembered, something beyond aesthetics.

Japan Pavilion for Expo'92- 1992