Tadao Ando: Living with Light

by Philip Jodidio, preface by Tadao Ando (Rizzoli)

‘A home should be specific to place, with a natural environment that is similarly unique to its location,’ avers Tadao Ando in his introduction to this work. The maxim imbued his first residential project in 1976, a controversial space in urban Osaka whose walls insulated its inhabitants from their neighbours while its courtyard opened to the sky; this is the fundamental approach in all of the architect’s more than 120 residential projects since.

This certainty conflicts with Ando’s questions here on the current state of architecture, the city and modern life; his works, however, belie this, offering a salve and a way forward. The 11 projects herein are a case in point. All privilege the courtyard (or broader nature where space permits), which is intended to ‘generate an infinite microcosm in harmony with nature to color its occupants’ lives with joy and vitality’. Indeed, Ando’s concrete-based work may seem superficially brutal, but there is a deft elegance to its straight lines, and a mastery of the titular element, which warms, pervades and inhabits interiors even where they seem sparse at first glance.

The small number of projects means each is thoroughly explicated in an insightful text by Philip Jodidio and a comprehensive selection of illustrations, plans and evocative full-bleed photography.