Tadao Ando and Frank Lloyd Wright are master architects known for integrating buildings with their natural surroundings. Ando's Koshino House features two concrete boxes embedded into a wooded slope to connect the home with nature. Wright's Fallingwater cantilevers rectangular balconies over a waterfall through its simple geometric forms that blend the structure into the landscape. Both architects emphasized preserving nature and designing buildings that become part of the environment through thoughtful massing and forms.

1. Name: Lim Jern Jack
ID: 0317139
Contextual Architecture of Tadao Ando and Frank Lloyd Wright
Tadao Ando- Koshino House
Frank Lloyd Wright- Falling Water
Tadao Ando is a master architect where he started to integrate the idea of
developing the traditional Japanese architecture with the modern architecture to
create the connectivity and continuity in between the new and old ones. When
conceptualising his form, Ando took the inspiration from Zen philosophies as a
fundamental persistent, with the interaction of nature and artificial elements that
come together as large geometric shapes which transverse both interior and exterior
spaces that intended to represent the dual nature of existence (Scott, 2011).
However, Frank Lloyd Wright coined the word ‘organic’ into his philosophy of
architecture, and it was an extension of the phrase to “form and function are one”
from Sullivan’s “form follows function”, a well integration of using nature as a part of
the building (Elman, n.d.). Frank Lloyd Wright’s organic architecture is not a style of
imitation because he did not claim to be building forms; instead, his organic
architecture is a reinterpretation of nature’s principles as they had been filtered to
build forms that are more natural than nature itself. It would be crystal clear if we
compare their masterpieces, the Koshino House by Tadao Ando and Falling Water
by Frank Lloyd Wright, in the way of their significant massing and form that reside on
the sites themselves respectively.
The context of a building is undoubtedly a key element of architecture that
how the site is dwelling with the architecture should not be neglected. The Koshino
House is one of the earliest works of Tadao Ando. It was built on a site composed of
pleasant woods and irregularly shaped slopes to create a sense of serenity and

2. harmony with the landscape (Figure 1). In the architectural philosophy of Ando, it is
Figure 1: This photo indicates how Koshino House is beautifully
inserted on the site (Koshino House, n.d.).
crucial to integrate the landscape as architecture to actually reunite the house and
the surrounding nature, whereby this is inspired by the traditional Japanese
architecture, which creates intimate connection with nature and the openness
towards the natural world. Through Koshino house, Ando demonstrated his fine use
of material, and also the ever changing shapes of the shadows created through the
day, but more importantly in the context of massing and form, the angle of how the
building is placed, all of which has been carefully thought out by Ando. In the
Koshino House, Ando strategically positioned the two organic concrete boxes in
parallel so as to avoid the scattered existing trees on the site, and had them
embedded into the ground that this responses to the adjacent ecosystem (Figure 2).
Figure 2: This photo indicates how Ando avoid the existing trees
on the site (Koshino House exterior shot 02, 2012).

3. The two different sizes of boxes are bridged by an underground corridor, and an
opened courtyard that is connected to the nature with his early intention by splitting
the geometry shape into smaller volumes or forms to fuse it well into the site as a
kind of paying respect to the nature to leave it untouched, and then building a house
on it in the meanwhile. The semi-circular atelier was added later on after 4 years
construction because Ando felt there was a need to harmonise the house with a
curve to sublime the overall form, which the line of curve has reduced the sense of
boxy (Figure 3). Ando pointed out that when we look at Japanese traditional
Figure 3: The additional curve that sublimes the overall form (Kabra, 2014).
architecture, we have to look at Japanese culture and its relationship with nature,
and you will find out that we can actually live in a harmonious, close contact with
nature where this is very unique to Japan (Ivy, 2002). Japanese traditional
architecture is created based on these conditions. This is the reason Koshino House
has a very high degree of connection between the outside and inside in architecture.
Thus, the blending in effect created for the house on the site does not compromise
its overall composition.
Apart from that, for Falling Water, Kostof (1985) stated that Wright sends out
free-floating platforms audaciously over a small waterfall and anchors them in the
natural rock, where something of the prairie house is here still; also detect a grudging
recognition of the International Style in the interlocking geometry of the planes and

4. the flat, non-textured surface of the main shelves. But thoroughly fused with its site
and, inside, the rough stonewalls and the flagged floors are of an elemental
ruggedness. Wright had challenged Sullivan’s maxim, “Form Follows Function”,
stating that, “Form follows function - that has been misunderstood. Form and
function should be one, joined in a spiritual union” (Frank Lloyd Wright The World's
Most Influential Architect, 2013). Falling Water was made from the geometrical order
that Wright saw in the uneven rocks and made the rectangular slabs regular
rectangles (Figure 4). The major form of Falling Water is the rectangular prisms that
Figure 4: Different sizes of rocks that put together to form rectangular slabs (Felix, 2013).
are stacked on top of one another at 90 degree angles, in which this simple geometry
was designed to let the cantilevers or the rectangular balconies that jut outwards
would hold the building over the waterfall (Figure 5). Furthermore, on the main level
Figure 5: Balconies that seem to be overhung (Fallingwater, 2015).
of Falling Water, the perimeter of the rectangular central space is lit by square ceiling
panels, and the four corners are supported by rectangular patterned stone piers. The

5. cantilevered roofs and terraces create planes and rectangular prisms that seem to go
on and on, which this is the quality that makes Wright's masterpiece looks like it is a
part of the landscape. Falling Water's horizontal lines go up to three levels with
rectangular and parallel terraces and cantilevers over the rocky bank. The horizontal
bands, which are made of concrete, are balanced by a perpendicular wall (Figure 6).
Figure 6: Counterpoint happens when the horizontal bands are balanced by
the perpendicular wall (Interior Decorating in New York & New Jersey, n.d.).
In which, it is harmonised with the presence of the counterpoint, where at the same
point, the bold rectangular geometry of the horizontal parapets and vertical stone
massing over the waterfall enclosed in an untouched nature meets the idea of
counterpoising quality for maximum impact. Certainly the work of Frank Lloyd Wright
has forever changed the landscape of America. Yet, today many critics have found
“flaws” in Wright’s engineering, and his personality, but undeniably, his influence on
architecture still stands (Irving, 2003a).
Tadao Ando and Frank Lloyd Wright are from total different backgrounds but
they have a certain way of approaching in their styles of architecture that create
some kind of similarity. Preserving the nature always comes first is the basic rule in
their philosophy because they both agree with the idea of leaving the nature
untouched, and making the building or architecture as a part of the landscape is the
best way of designing a space that suits people’s needs, and even more importantly,
we always want to back to basics and back to nature, which the masterpieces of

6. them have shown these qualities. The character of Frank Lloyd Wright’s buildings
prescribed not a style, but an expression of consciousness that inspired
reinterpretations of forms in the modern world (Irving, 2003b). In the meanwhile,
Tadao Ando has his very own unique way of interpretation about the language of
architecture, as he was inspired by Le Corbusier in the early stage to use the
concrete massing, but he used it in a different manner that this marks him to
influence not only the Japanese modern architecture but rest of the world that this
will continue to inspire many.

7. Reference:
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Kabra, M. (2014, September 9). Koshino House by Tadao Ando - Architect Boy.
Retrieved May 28, 2015, from http://architectboy.com/koshino-house-tadao-ando/
Koshino House. (n.d.). Retrieved May 28, 2015, from
http://en.wikiarquitectura.com/index.php?title=Koshino_House
Koshino House exterior shot 02. (2012, January 22). Retrieved May 28, 2015, from
https://www.flickr.com/photos/33354011@N05/
Kostof, S. (1985) A History of Architecture, Settings and Rituals. New York: Oxford
University Press, 1985. p737.
Scott. (2011, August 1). Design Inspiration: Tadao Ando. Retrieved May 18, 2015,
from http://www.kensa-creative.com/blog/design-inspiration-tadao-ando/