ARCHITECTURE Tadao Ando
AS ARMANI/SILOS IN MILAN HOSTS THE CHALLENGE, AN EXHIBITION OF TADAO ANDO’S WORK, JING ZHANG CONSIDERS THE GLOBAL IMPACT OF THE PRIZE-WINNING AND LARGELY SELF-TAUGHT JAPANESE ARCHITECT
In Tadao Ando’s architecture, I see an extraordinary ability to transform ‘heavy’ materials, such as metal and concrete, into something truly exciting,” said fashion mogul Giorgio Armani, as he announced their latest project together in April. “I very much like his use of light, a fundamental element that helps shape the character of spaces.”
Ando’s work commands a reverence around the world that’s almost religious. There’s something monastic yet grandiose about the Japanese architect’s bare, massive concrete structures, and the way light illuminates around and through them.
From the monumental lavender-covered temple that completely circles a 13.5-metre-high Buddha statue at Sapporo’s Makomanai Takino Cemetery to the Modern Art Museum at Fort Worth Texas and the completely circular art gallery housed in the 19th-century Paris Bourse de Commerce, Ando has infused almost spiritual meaning into the material. In the case of his churches (the Ibaraki Kasugoaka’s cut-out cross of light and the water cascading down on Chapel on the Hill) and temples, that meaning is expressed almost literally.
“I wish to create an architecture that will live on eternally,” he explains, “not in substance or form, but as a memory within people’s hearts.”
Winning the prestigious Pritzker Prize in 1995 put the Osaka-born architect on a new plane. His career over five decades has been an evolution of a man largely self-taught in architecture, who began in the age of hand-drawn sketches and vast imaginations. Remarkably, he worked as a truck driver and professional boxer before finding his calling in architectural design.
“I WISH TO CREATE AN ARCHITECTURE THAT WILL LIVE ON ETERNALLY AS A MEMORY WITHIN PEOPLE’S HEARTS”
Through apprenticeships, night classes and visits to buildings around the world, he honed his skills and unique attitude to space, materiality and light. First intrigued by architects such as Le Corbusier, Ando went on to develop an approach that was unique and rather unmistakeable – a curious blend of Japanese tradition with bold, impactful, contemporary style. He opened his first office in 1969 in Osaka, quickly gaining renown – and over the decades became perhaps Japan’s most famous contemporary architect.
Armani has long been a fan. Ando’s philosophy and precision inspired the Italian in 2001 to commission him to design Armani/Teatro – an impressive industrial monolith – in Milan’s via Bergognone. The Ando retrospective, which was also shown at the Centre Pompidou in Paris last year, is readapted and designed for the Armani/Silos space in Milan. Titled The Challenge, it runs until July 28 and was inaugurated in April during this year’s Salone di Mobile by both Armani and Ando.
“I’m very happy about this new collaboration and believe that Armani/Silos, with its austere, evocative atmosphere, is the perfect place to express the poetry and power of his work,” said Armani.
The essence of The Challenge is at the crux of why Ando finds architecture so fascinating. Whereas some architects just wish to dominate a space with their creations, this one seems more concerned with the way in which manipulated spaces can affect human feeling. There’s great emotional power to the Zen-like structures that Ando specialises in – the effect is elevation of spirit through a scaled reminder of human humility.
Since the exhibition encompasses Ando’s endeavours for the past half-century, the architect hopes it can also “contribute to the future development of design and culture”. Organised into four major themes – Primitive Shapes of Space, An Urban Challenge, Landscape Genesis and Dialogues with History – the narrative traces his architectural ideologies and structures over his career, and his use of nature, water and light. There are mock-ups of his biggest projects to date, such as his restoration of the Punta della Dogana in Venice and the Bourse project.
“As architecture encounters various phenomena, it activates new dialogues. It is these dialogues that speak to people’s souls. How can I shape these dialogues to be more fundamental and more fruitful?” he asks. “There’s no single answer to this question, as every project has its own unique context. This is what makes architecture challenging. This is why it’s fun.”
Fun seems almost too flippant a word for what Ando does. The rawness of grey concrete touches on elements of Japanese wabi-sabi, whereas the perfect sweeping curves of his massive circular spaces and ovals can be heart-stopping to those who visit. He favours concrete, glass and steel, as well as floating pavilions, panels and gardens. The barren smoothness of the concrete is achieved by varnishing the formwork before pouring the material. Fun is not quite the word that springs to mind for those beholding his structures – “awe” is perhaps more apt.
This work has earned Ando many accolades apart from the Pritzker. After only 10 years of working as an architect, he won the annual prize of the Architectural Institute of Japan in 1979 for his Row House in Sumiyoshi (commonly referred to as the Azuma House), while the School of Architecture at Rome’s La Sapienza University bestowed on him a Laurea Honoris Causa in 2002.
“Tadao Ando is an absolute master of architecture, with an unmistakeable aesthetic style that comes very close to my sensibility,” said Armani, who shares with the architect an almost obsessive love of greyscale, precision and pure tailored lines.
It’s natural to become introspective and reflective when collating a summary of your life’s work. At 77 years of age, and after half a century in the field, Ando remains “eager to continue tackling the endless challenge of creating architecture”. He’s explained that he views his hand as an extension of his thinking process and of his creative mind – and how important it is to keep that mind fresh, hopeful and in discovery mode.
“No matter your age, it is better to be an unripe green apple than a ripe red apple. To be unripe is to be youthful, to be naive, to be energetic,” Ando says. “When you have matured completely, you are no longer able to learn anything new or attempt things that might end in failure. To quote one of my favourite poems, Youth by Samuel Ullman, ‘Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul’.”