Tadao Ando biography: A wild beast that refuses to be tamed
Top image: The Koshino residence designed by Tadao Ando in 1981. photo by Kazunori Fujimoto via CC BY-ND 2.0
Tadao Ando is one of the most well-known architects in Japan, but it’s not only because of his achievements in architecture. His unique personality is also well known. He has been a magnetic figure even among people who have little interest in architecture. What kind of person is he? This article reviews Tadao Ando’s biography. Early life, how he became a professional boxer to a self-taught architect, his signature projects including the Row House of Sumiyoshi, the Koshino House, the Naoshima project, Punta della Dogana and lesser-known peculiar project “Head Buddha.”
If you’ve ever heard Ando speak, you might have been surprised by his frank and direct way of talking. He is from Osaka, the second largest city in Japan that has a very different culture compared to Tokyo. Osaka has always been a city of commerce. People like to be practical and reasonable. They love talking and negotiating. They are blunt, talk fast, loud, and joke a lot. They also love taking care of others. They are not afraid of “meddling,” even if that ends up in arguments. In Osaka, which is as densely populated as Tokyo, personal distance is close both physically and emotionally. It is a stark difference from Tokyo, where people are committed to securing as much personal space as possible in a crowded city.
Ando is an Osakan rather than Japanese. In his world, various elements co-exist, colliding and disagreeing with each other. He absorbs all the differences and throws them into one pot. When he does so, he does not try to hide the difference, nor does try to find compromises among different stakeholders, factors or elements. That’s why his works are fully of energy – not just synergy, but also includes energy that repels each other. That energy overwhelms people who try to follow convention, compromise, and prioritize modesty to be on the safe side.
Ando has little interest and tolerance for conventional things designed to make the process efficient or easy. He knows that nothing is easy in the natural environment. He believes that our potential will be compromised if we choose to rely on easy solutions. He is a wild beast that refuses to be tamed.
Tadao Ando: Early life
Ando was born in 1941 and grew up in an old, densely populated, working-class neighborhood in Osaka. Then he was a small child, Japan was still in the midst of the chaos following the defeat in WWII. Because of the family situation, he was adapted by his grand parents, but his grandfather died when he was still small.
He lived with his grandmother in a meager nagaya (a Japanese traditional multiplex) house about 12′ wide and 48′ deep. It had little insulation and lighting. It rattled when the wind blew. Cold air leaked in through broken glass. Since his childhood, Ando knew that weather directly affected people’s everyday lives. He knew that nature was strong. Nature was overwhelming. He probably also grew up watching how natural light came through shoji (a Japanese screen door made of wood and paper), changing its intensity, angles, colors and the warmth as the day passed. His experience in the nagaya formed the foundation of his architecture.
He was a disobedient, aggressive and independent kid. His grandmother never spoiled him, and left him alone to do his own thing even when he was young. As an intense child in a tough environment, he grew up using his senses and abilities to the fullest. He cried hard when he was sad. He fought with friends when he was angry. He ventured outside without supervision, and used his creativity to make things from scrapped materials.
When he was 12 years or so, a carpenter came to his house to do some repairs. Ando was fascinated by the skill and dedication involved in the craft, and became passionate about building houses. But he didn’t have enough money to go to college. He had to support his grandmother after he graduated from high school. So he decided to become a professional boxer. He thought he could more than regular jobs available for a young man without a college degree.
Tadao Ando: how he became an architect
But he couldn’t give up his dream to become an architect. He loved building things, and admired Le Corbusier. He was also stunned by the construction process of the Yoyogi National Gymnasium designed by Kenzo Tange, which was being built for the Tokyo Olympics 1964. So he decided to teach himself architecture, eventually passing an exam to receive his license. In the meantime, he spent four years traveling to see the world. During the trip, he fell in love with the “Notre Dame du Haut” by Le Corbusier. It confirmed his belief that architecture was a device for people to get together. Ando was inspired by how a piece of architecture could be a special place for collective energy and shared emotions. In terms of design details, Ando liked the interiors of the Notre Dame du Haut that had carefully designed openings on the concrete walls. The light that came through windows changed its intensity and color as the time went by, casting different shades on people praying.
Notre Dame du Haut
Left: Pieter Smits via CC BY 2.0 Right: Rory Hyde via CC BY-SA 2.0
He opened his own architectural studio when he came back to Japan. He was 28. But no one hired this young architect with no experience nor college degree. But it wasn’t new to him. He always had to deal with hopeless situations in his early life. As he recollected later, challenges defined his approach and passion towards architecture.
住吉の長屋 (The Row House of Sumiyoshi) is one of Ando’s early works that made his name known by Japanese architecture community. It shocked other architects as Ando did something unimaginable. For an extremely low budget project, he stripped off as many details as possible. He inserted a minimalist concrete box into a row of wooden houses. It didn’t have any openings except for a patio in the middle of the house.
It was a challenging house to live. When it rained, things got wet because of the open patio. The owner in the living room had to use an umbrella to go to the bathroom which was on the other side of the patio. It was cold in winter, as there was no heating. When the owner jokingly complaint, Ando would reply: “it is what it is. That’s how nature works. If one sweater is not enough to keep you warm, put on another one!” He didn’t try to sugarcoat the real strength of nature. But at the same time, he believe in the resilience humans possessed to deal with the force of nature.
The house eventually won the Architectural Institute of Japan prize in 1979, which made Ando a national figure. People were stunned by his fearless approach to challenge the convention in every way.
Tadao Ando: 小篠邸 The Koshino House (1976)
As you can imagine, some people criticized his design. It’s a fair statement that a house that leaks when it rains is dysfunctional. However, Ando kept designing residential houses, and he didn’t change his approach. In 1981, Hiroko Koshino, an accomplished fashion designer asked him to design her home in Ashiya, Kobe. In the middle of a nice neighborhood surrounded by trees, the “Koshino House” has become one of his landmark works in his early career. It showcased Ando’s philosophy to marry minimalist design, bare concrete with nature, leveraging the power of light.
But in reality, the Koshino House was, once again, challenging to live. Ando kept the power of nature as intact as possible, and forced the residents to face it. An example of the beautiful side: he elevated the relationship between the light, concrete surface and outside environment. Since the house was on the slope, Ando left some parts of the house buried underground, preserving the natural slope of the site. As a result, the light came in from various angles – top, bottom and the sides – often accompanied by the green reflection of the trees growing in the yard, which appeared at the level of your eyes when you were sitting in some of the semi-underground rooms.
However, Ando sacrificed comfort for aesthetic perfection. Ando would joke: “Every time I see Koshino, she complains that she needs to wear skiing gear in winter because it’s so cold.” It is also said that some parts of the house leaked ridiculously when it rained.
But why doesn’t Ando worried about leaks? It’s because believes that they are the results of honest collisions between nature and people. And to our surprise, some – if not all – owners of Ando’s house get it. Both the Sumiyoshi house and the Koshino house were used with little modification for decades.
Ando designed the “Church of the Light” in Ibaraki Cilty, Osaka in 1989. It is one of Ando’s most famous works. He created a cross using the horizontal and vertical slits cut into the east wall made of exposed concrete, which became an iconic design. Stripping away any extra design details, the church highlights the beauty of natural light that falls on the minimalist, bare concrete geometry, which absorbs, reflects and emits light. In 2017, the replica of the Church of the Light was installed at the exhibition site of “Tadao Ando: Endeavors.” Go to the post “Tadao Ando: The Church of the Light.”
Light occupies a special place in Ando’s architecture and his respect toward nature. And it makes a lot of sense. Light is force that creates all potential on Earth. Light is strength, and light is life. But since it is so powerful, it can also create profound darkness or chaos when it collides with other elements. That duality of the light is what Ando is all about. Light is potential energy in itself, and so is Ando.
In the 90’s, Ando’s endeavors to marry (or collide) nature and humans started embracing much larger landscape.
Naoshima is an island on the beautiful Seto Naikai, the inland sea in Kansai that looks like a small version of the Mediterranean Sea. By the 80’s, the Seto Naikai started suffering from environmental degradation as a result of rapid industrialization. Especially in Naoshima, the copper refinery emitted harmful SOx, killing trees and agricultural crops.
In 1985, Tetsuhiko Fukutake, the founder of Benesse (one of Japan’s largest educational service providers), and Chikatsugu Miyake, the then Mayor of Naoshima, met and agreed to re-invigorate and transform the pollution-ridden island into a global art/education center. Ando joined the team to supervise the designing and building of multiple facilities including hotels and museums.
After more 30 years from its inception, the Naoshima project has become one center of potential energy on its own. It is no longer just an art project, a revitalization/redevelopment project, nor an architectural project. It has become a large collective and dynamic experiment involving artists, local people, businesses and surrounding communities. A lot of people visit Naoshima to experience, think, work, collide and act.
Naoshima was bald when the project started at the end of the 80’s, recollects Ando. He was determined to start planting trees to restore the abundant forests that used to cover the island. So Ando designed some buildings presuming that they would be covered by trees and foliage in decades. “These budling will be competed when they are completely covered by trees,” said Ando about the “Bennese House Oval,” a high-end hotel that features artworks by renowned artists including Richard Long. As daunting as it sounds, he made it happen even though it took decades.
Tadao Ando: Punta della Dogana (2009)
He plants trees everywhere he goes, often leading the fundraising efforts. Wherever he goes, people follow him and donate. As an Osakan, he knows the power and importance of money. It’s natural for him to get involved in fundraisers to help restore the power of people and the environment, as they are bonded inseparably in his architectural projects. He wants his architecture to be part of the surrounding environment, and he wants the surrounding environment to stay healthy for centuries. And he means it. That is the reason why he is also actively involved in restoration projects. For him, architecture is a unique juncture of the past, the present and the future. In order for the future to exist, we have to sustain “present” for centuries to come. That’s why he makes sure he uses existing assets where possible, rather than demolishing them to build new ones.
In 2008, a French billionaire and art collector François Pinault and Ando won a competition to restore the “Dogana da Mar” in Venice, Italy. It’s a beautiful old custom house located at the tip of a triangular site where two major canals meet. Built in the 17th century, the complex was not in use for a couple of decades. Pinault came up with an idea to revitalize it as an art museum.
Ando tried to reserve the old structure and materials as much as possible, but it was harder than demolishing the entire building. Old materials such as wooden truss, bricks and stones had to be restored one by one. In some parts, old stone tiles were removed first, then planed and polished before re-installed.
He inserted his signature exposed cast-in concrete box at the center of the dome. He wanted to marry – or rather collide – the history, the present (architecture leveraging concrete, steel and glass) and the future (modern art). Concrete was finished with the best quality you could expect. (A group Italian professionals who’ve worked with Ando before worked on it.) It looks smooth and fluid. Ando hoped that the sincere collision of old, substantial materials/designs and light-looking, minimalist concrete/glass will make visitors think: “What is the history? Where am I now and where are we going?”
Tadao Ando: 頭大仏 The Hill of the Buddha (2016)
One of the most peculiar projects by Ando is probably “頭大仏 (means the head Buddha),” or the “Hill of the Buddha.” It’s located in a large-scale semi-public cemetery in Hokkaido, Japan.
The cemetery commissioned Ando to design a renewal project of the facility that surrounded the existing large statue of Buddha. It is a bit of a weird site: a large plot of land in the middle of the countryside, the cemetery has rather random monuments installed here and there, including the replica of Moai statues of Easter Island and Stonehenge of England.
Ando came up with a bizarre idea to bury the entire statue by enveloping it with a lavender hill, leaving only the top of the head visible from outside. And this is how it looks.
The statue was covered by concrete structure first, and then covered by the soil. After that, Ando ordered to plant as many as 150,000 lavenders plants.
If you look from afar, you only see the tip of Buddha’s head rising out of the hill. It is surrounded be white snow in winter and purple lavender in spring. Whereas the hill is a large architectural project, it is surrounded by much larger mountains as you can see in the background. It almost looks ridiculous.
In order to get closer to the statue, you have to walk along a pathway that forces you to go over the body of water and through a tunnel, as if you are traveling from this world to another world. Reaching the Buddha, you must look up at him up, lit by the sunlight that comes in through the opening at the top. The contrast is made drastic everywhere; it almost feels surreal.
This can’t be considered an authentic Buddhist monument. It is really peculiar. But there is something unique. It just shows his stunning creativity works to let something this extraordinary happen.