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Philippe Starck describes him as a "mystic in a country which is no longer mystic." Drew Philip calls his buildings "land art" that "struggle to emerge from the earth." He is the only architect to have won the discipline's four most prestigious prizes: the Pritzker, Carlsberg, Praemium Imperiale, and Kyoto Prize. His name is Tadao Ando, and he is one of the world's greatest living architects. Combining influences from Japanese tradition with the best of Modernism, Ando has developed a completely unique building aesthetic that makes use of concrete, wood, water, light, space, and nature in a way that has never been witnessed elsewhere in architecture. This book provides the perfect introduction to Ando's work, including private homes, churches, museums, apartment complexes, and cultural spaces throughout Japan, and in France, Italy, Spain, and the USA.
About the Author
Masao Furuyama studied architecture at Kyoto University and received his doctorate in urban engineering from Tokyo University. He has taught at the Kyoto Institute of Technology, where he has been Vice-President since 2004, and published on the subjects of architecture and Tadao Ando.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
16 of 17 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
The slim volume of less than one hundred pages and small format is in a way in harmony with the minimalist aesthetics of the charismatic architect. The book is a distillate of beauty.
The exquisite colour photographs display the magic of the spare aesthetics, elegance and strength of Ando's buildings and surrounding landscape. The accompanying text is succinct and incisive and does justice to the architect and its creations through dissecting and providing a penetrating analysis of the elements that characterize Ando's architecture and individual buildings.
In all, nineteen projects are presented covering a broad spectrum of Ando's work comprising houses, apartment buildings, churches, temples, museums, art foundations, the Japan pavilion expo '92 and the Meditation Space, Unesco.
Three are the primary characteristics in Ando's architecture: the geometry of walls, the geometry of sky and elements derived from the Japanese minimalist aesthetics.
Ando's architecture is an architecture of walls e.g. a freestanding wall, an angled wall piercing a concrete cube or a wall, bisected horizontally, encircling an inner courtyard like a medieval rampart.
Ando employs a limited range of materials and expresses their naked textures. His choice of materials gives his work its characteristic ascetism and tension. His buildings convey a feeling of purity, beauty and strength.
Ando though a master of poured concrete, still relies on natural materials for points that a human being may touch. He invariably uses natural wood for floors, doors, and furniture. As natural materials decay, they become repositories for memory.
Nature, especially the sky, plays a crucial role in Ando's architecture. He abstracts it to his purposes. In order to elude architecture's fundamental nature as a closed-off box, he relies on the sky as the natural element which most affects architectural interiors. In Ando's architecture, the sky is a crucial spatial-structural element. The interplay of light and shadow created by a sharply delineated sky and the three-dimensional forms expressed in concrete walls generate a special fascination in Ando's architecture.
The interlocking relationship between site, structure and empty space provides a formula for bringing a confined area to life.
Ando's architecture is simple, strong and gentle. It joins simplicity of form to complexity of space. It uses naked materials delicate to the touch. Ando's architecture is considered the culmination of Japanese aesthetics. Because the place of nothing is the essence of Japanese culture. A container of aesthetic emotions.
What Ando's buildings always communicate to us is the conviction that architecture is able to give order to the world only when it is based on strong emotions, and the faith that strong emotions are born only by taking up challenges and prevailing. Beauty is not the goal of architecture, only the result.
The exquisite colour photographs display the magic of the spare aesthetics, elegance and strength of Ando's buildings and surrounding landscape. The accompanying text is succinct and incisive and does justice to the architect and its creations through dissecting and providing a penetrating analysis of the elements that characterize Ando's architecture and individual buildings.
In all, nineteen projects are presented covering a broad spectrum of Ando's work comprising houses, apartment buildings, churches, temples, museums, art foundations, the Japan pavilion expo '92 and the Meditation Space, Unesco.
Three are the primary characteristics in Ando's architecture: the geometry of walls, the geometry of sky and elements derived from the Japanese minimalist aesthetics.
Ando's architecture is an architecture of walls e.g. a freestanding wall, an angled wall piercing a concrete cube or a wall, bisected horizontally, encircling an inner courtyard like a medieval rampart.
Ando employs a limited range of materials and expresses their naked textures. His choice of materials gives his work its characteristic ascetism and tension. His buildings convey a feeling of purity, beauty and strength.
Ando though a master of poured concrete, still relies on natural materials for points that a human being may touch. He invariably uses natural wood for floors, doors, and furniture. As natural materials decay, they become repositories for memory.
Nature, especially the sky, plays a crucial role in Ando's architecture. He abstracts it to his purposes. In order to elude architecture's fundamental nature as a closed-off box, he relies on the sky as the natural element which most affects architectural interiors. In Ando's architecture, the sky is a crucial spatial-structural element. The interplay of light and shadow created by a sharply delineated sky and the three-dimensional forms expressed in concrete walls generate a special fascination in Ando's architecture.
The interlocking relationship between site, structure and empty space provides a formula for bringing a confined area to life.
Ando's architecture is simple, strong and gentle. It joins simplicity of form to complexity of space. It uses naked materials delicate to the touch. Ando's architecture is considered the culmination of Japanese aesthetics. Because the place of nothing is the essence of Japanese culture. A container of aesthetic emotions.
What Ando's buildings always communicate to us is the conviction that architecture is able to give order to the world only when it is based on strong emotions, and the faith that strong emotions are born only by taking up challenges and prevailing. Beauty is not the goal of architecture, only the result.
Format:Paperback
I was aware this wasn't an in-depth book, but it set me racing for information/research after reading this. It's especially inspiring for those first-year/second-year students out there who are keen to explore, or just those who want to know what it takes to become king of the concrete hill.
I went in to a coffee shop to read it from front to back. Of course I left having finished it, but more importantly I felt nourished. It has a healthy amount of text, with some stunning architectural photography throughout. The breadth of typology/topography will send you racing for more of his work outside of this little gem. Tadao Ando is a master of simplicity. This 'Taschen Basic Architecture Series' follows suit.
I went in to a coffee shop to read it from front to back. Of course I left having finished it, but more importantly I felt nourished. It has a healthy amount of text, with some stunning architectural photography throughout. The breadth of typology/topography will send you racing for more of his work outside of this little gem. Tadao Ando is a master of simplicity. This 'Taschen Basic Architecture Series' follows suit.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
2 reviews
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Another Great Book from Taschen
22 Jan 2007
Format:Paperback
This is the first Taschen Basic Architecture volume about a living architect. The earlier Taschen volumes have been about the Modernist masters such as Mies, Le Corbusier, Loos, Wright, Kahn and Neutra. If there is any living architect who can measure up to this Pantheon of Greats, it is Pritzker Prize winner, Tadao Ando.
Like the other volumes in this series, there is a short biographical essay, followed by short chapters that focus on key works. The German Publishing Company Taschen publishes some of the best architectural books. Their books are always of the highest quality and reasonably priced. At Ten Dollars, it is hard to imagine a better introduction to the works of one of the most important architects of the Twentieth Century. Highly recommended.
Like the other volumes in this series, there is a short biographical essay, followed by short chapters that focus on key works. The German Publishing Company Taschen publishes some of the best architectural books. Their books are always of the highest quality and reasonably priced. At Ten Dollars, it is hard to imagine a better introduction to the works of one of the most important architects of the Twentieth Century. Highly recommended.
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
worth buying
12 May 2007
Format:Paperback
this books introduce lots of important works of Tadao Ando
good print quality, nice pictures with reasonable price
good print quality, nice pictures with reasonable price
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