Tadao Ando

by Aurora Cuito

Tadao Ando (*1941, Osaka/Japan) did not receive any formal architectural schooling. Ando rejects the rampant consumerism visible within much of today's architecture. In opposition to traditional Japanese architecture, he creates spaces of enclosure rather than openness. He uses walls to establish a human zone and to counter the monotony of commercial architecture.

Genres: Architecture

80 pages, Hardcover

First published July 1, 2003

Reviews

[Sasha · Rating 3 out of 5]

As so often lately, I picked this book up in one of those swapping book shelves and was intrigued by title - I hadn't known much about Tadao Ando, but I have been in one of the museum spaces shown in the book and thought I may as well read the book.

The book is on the short side but has beautiful pictures of several projects and buildings Ando designed. After a short introduction, several of his works are shown with a small text on the left side (these are in English, German, French and Italian, hence the brevity of the texts). While I find it commendable to have so many translations, it falls short of explaining some of his designs. I wish there had been more space to really tell the reader what exactly was meant when they write "incorporated into nature" or some other features of the works/projects, as the several photographs often do not show satisfyingly what was explained in the text in terms of Ando's design intentions.
It is however a nice introduction to Ando's work (up until 2002, two following examples are just models of buildings that were built after then) and a quick read. I will for sure endeavor to visit some of the places shown in the book... some of the museum places are truly breath taking.

[Ruth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cool museums --- and well-translated text -- though sometimes the photographic coverage and the schematics were so limited that it made it hard to discern the key features called out in the text.