Tadao Ando, born in Osaka, Japan in 1941, is a self-taught architect known for his minimalist and culturally rich designs, often using concrete to create simple yet profound structures that resonate with nature and spiritual concepts. He has received numerous accolades, including the Pritzker Prize in 1995, and his works, such as the Koshino House and Punta della Dogana, reflect his philosophy of architecture as a means to influence society. His style is heavily influenced by Zen principles, emphasizing simplicity, the relationship between space and light, and the importance of creating a memorable identity for buildings.

1. TADAO ANDO
Born September 13,
1941 (age 73)
Minato-ku,
Osaka, Japan
Nationality Japanese
Occupation Architect

2. INTRODUCTION :
• Tadao Ando (born September 13, 1941) is a Japanese self-taught architect whose
approach toarchitecture and landscapewas categorized by architectural
historianFrancesco Dal Co as "critical regionalism".
• Ando was born a few minutesbefore his twin brother in 1941 in Osaka, Japan.
• At the age of two, his family chose to separate them, and have Tadao live with his
grandmother.
• He worked as a truck driver and boxer before settling on the profession of architect,
despite never having formal training in the field. Struck by the Frank Lloyd Wright-
designed Imperial Hotel on a trip to Tokyo as a second-year high school student, he
eventuallydecided to end his boxing career less than two years after graduatingfrom
high school to pursue architecture.
• He attended night classes to learn drawing and took correspondence courses on
interiordesign. He visited buildingsdesigned by renowned architectslike Le
Corbusier, Ludwig Mies Van der Rohe, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Louis Kahn before
returning to Osaka in 1968 to establish his own design studio, Tadao Ando Architects
and Associates.
• In 1995, Ando won the Pritzker Prize for architecture, considered the highest
distinctionin the field.
• He donated the $100,000 prize money to the orphans of the 1995 Kobe earthquake

3. CHARACTERISTICS FEATURES :
• Ando was raised in Japan where the religion and style of life strongly
influenced his architecture and design.
• Ando's architectural style is said to create a "haiku" effect, emphasizing
nothingness and empty space to represent the beauty of simplicity.
• He favors designing complex spatial circulation while maintaining the
appearance of simplicity.
• A self-taught architect, he keeps his Japanese culture and language in mind
while he travels around Europe for research.
• As an architect, he believes that architecture can change society, that "to
change the dwelling is to change the city and to reform society".
• "Reform society" could be a promotion of a place or a change of the identity
of that place.
• According to Werner Blaser, "Good buildings by Tadao Ando create
memorable identity and therefore publicity, which in turn attracts the public
and promotes market penetration“.
• The simplicity of his architecture emphasizes the concept of sensation and
physical experiences, mainly influenced by the Japanese culture.
• The religious term Zen, focuses on the concept of simplicity and concentrates
on inner feeling rather than outward appearance.

4. • Zen influences vividly show in Ando’s work and became its distinguishing mark.
In order to practice the idea of simplicity, Ando's architecture is mostly
constructed with concrete, providing a sense of cleanliness and weightlessness
at the same time.
• Due to the simplicity of the exterior, construction, and organizationof the space
are relatively potential in order to represent the aesthetic of sensation.
• Besides Japanese religious architecture, Ando has also designed Christian
churches, such as the Church of the Light (1989)and the Church in Tarumi
(1993).
• Although Japanese and Christian churches display distinct characteristics, Ando
treats them in a similar way.
• He believes there should be no difference in designing religious architecture and
houses.
• As he explains, “We do not need to differentiate one from the other. Dwelling in
a house is not only a functional issue, but also a spiritual one. The house is the
locus of mind (kokoro), and the mind is the locus of god. Dwelling in a house is a
search for the mind (kokoro) as the locus of god, just as one goes to church to
search for god. An important role of the church is to enhance this sense of the
spiritual. In a spiritual place, people find peace in their mind (kokoro), as in their
homeland.”

5. • Besides speaking of the spirit of architecture, Ando also emphasises the
association between nature and architecture.
• He intends for people to easily experience the spirit and beauty of nature
through architecture.
• He believes architecture is responsible for performing the attitude of the site
and makes it visible.
• This not only represents his theory of the role of architecture in society but
also shows why he spends so much time studying architecture from physical
experience.

6. ARCHITECTURAL WORKS :
1. KOSHINO HOUSE:
Architect Tadao Ando
Location Ashiya, Japan
Date 1981
Building Type house
Construction
System
concrete
Style Modern

7. Introduction
• "The house, by Tadao Ando for the designer Koshin, is a veritable maze of
lights and shadows.
• The architect seeks to reconcile the tenets of international modernism with
tradition and landscape, in this case, Japanese.
• So , The House Koshino is an example of contemporary architecture built in
two parallel wings that barely interrupt the landscape.
• The use of concrete, simplicity and treatment of light, typical features of the
architecture of the Japanese.
• Koshin house is located in Ashiya, a small town located between Osakaand
Kobe two major urban centers in Japan.
• It is built in a residential area, suburban, in the hills of the city.
• Located on a mountainside densely wooded, the House Koshin is embedded in
the ground, irregular shape contrasts strongly with the sharpness of the
geometric shapes of the building.
• The effect is achieved through a strong slope, is that the visitor comes from
above and before entering can see their feet the roof of the house.

8. Concept
• The house is organized into two parallel bodies, joined by an
underground passage which define a central courtyard.
• The body contains a shorter living room of double height,
while the longest wing houses a number of bedrooms.
• The study in the form of a crescent, adjacent to the living
room, was added later, in sharp contrast with the composite
bodies already in existence.

9. Design
• The entry of this house, semi batch, is level. From here go down in the living
room with double height.
• In one wing parallel to the building, connected through a corridor of almost
underground, a number of halls and rooms for children, since that can be
accessed by a long hallway.
• The entire house is structured as a Japanese garden around a series of scenic
background, designed to boost awareness of nature.
• The two big openings in the living room offer views of the steep slopes, trees
and hills in the distance.
• In 1983, Ando was asked to add a study. The addition is totally underground
north of the room, the containment wall account of how the circumference
of the plant.
• Although this house is often linked to minimalism can be better understood
in the context of archetypal forms of temples and aesthetic scintoisti reduced
by Zen Buddhism

10. Materials
• Another factor worth noting is that there are no decorative elements.
• The view provided by the wide openings along with the shadows cast by
the narrow openings and skylights, and the texture of the concrete both
combined, operate as the only ornamentation.
SmoothConcrete
• All the walls are made of this material and are free of ornamentation and
in their natural form.
• Tadao Ando used this material because it is a way to admit light and wind
within the walls and creating a sense of serenity and wide open spaces.
• Another reason why using this material is due to industrialization and
technological resources to which access is the architect living in a
developed country such as Japan.
Glass
• Widely used to make large glass windows throughout the house.
• The reason for using this material is giving way to large quantities of light
and offer a view of the garden.

11. SITE PLAN

16. PHOTO GALLERY

18. 2. 4X4 HOUSE:
Architect:
Tadao
Ando
Year(s) of
construction:
2003
Land Area: 117.19 m2
Floor Area: 22.56 m2
Location:
Tarumi-ku,
Kobe,
Hyogo,
Japan

19. Introduction
• The initial house was the result of a contest organized by a magazineand
approached the client with the famous architect, Tadao Ando.
• The 4x4 House perfectly adapts to the site requirements.
• A decisive factor in the project was the Hanshin earthquake, which caused terrible
devastationin the area.
• Once the first house was finished, a second customer asked Ando to build a similar
house in the neighboring site.
• With this second order, the architect was able to complete his original idea of the
two houses, but with no communication between them as he had previously
thought.
• The two buildings are located off the coast of Hyogo, in the outskirts of Kobe, along
a commercial strip.
• Each home is located in a 5 x 5 meter plot, a critical condition at the time of
designing the buildings.

20. Concept
• Each unit is a block of concrete that serves as a lighthouse overlooking the
view of the sea.
• The first house has minimal floor dimensions, approximately 4x4 meters and
instead addresses the necessities of the occupants in height, using a
basement, ground floor and three other floors above this.
• The second house becomes different from the first one when we study the
vertical accesses.
• While the first is developed by a staircase, the second one has an elevator.
• Another difference between them is the materials that were used; the original
house was built entirely in concrete while the second one used wood as well,
by request of the customer.

21. Description
• Each floor of the house is used for a different activity: storage in the
basement, access and service on the ground floor, bedroom on the
first floor, study on the second, kitchen and dining room on the top
floor.
• The spaces are almost completely enclosed on three sides, while
they are open along the fourth facing towards the sea.
Materials
Concrete, wood and glass
Structure
Reinforced concrete

26. PHOTO GALLERY

29. 3. PUNTA DELLA DOGANA:
Architect:
Tadao
Ando
Year(s) of
remodeling
:
2007 -
2009
Location:
Venice,
Italy

31. Introduction
• Designed by TadaoAndo as a naturalcontinuationand extension of the route to visit the
Palazzo Grassi, also owned by Francois Pinault, the ContemporaryArt Center Punta della
Dogana is the exhibitioncenter from the privatecollectionof French art dealer.
• This restorationtakes twenty millioninvestment and two years of work for 120 workers,
has been entirely borne by Francois Pinault, owner of the prestigious commercial firm
Gucci, among others.
• At the Center, Pinault sets out its own contemporaryart collection,about 300 works by
renowned artists.
• From the first designs the architect proposes to retain the assembly characteristic of the
stores, in particularthe double-heightcourtyard created in XVII, patio that exists in
every great Venetian palaceas well as brick columns, testimony of the thickness of the
walls and equip the entire space of the buildingwith different types of intervention:
water protection,structural consolidation,restorationof masonry, electrical and
architecturalconcrete elements, floors, doors, windows, attics, roofs and even the
restorationof the sculpturalgroup.
• It is a buildingwith an area of 5,000 m2, triangular, dating back to the seventeenth
century, with a frontage of 210 feet above the canal and 75 feet above the Campo della
Salute, which would correspond to the base of the triangle.

32. History
• XV
o The customs office was near the castle was dividedArsenal Land Customs and
Customs Mar.
o They decided to move the sea to the Punta della Dogana,at the tip of the
island of Dorsoduro, calledPunta del Sale, due to salt deposits that were built
there.
• 1677
o In this year he was commissioned to Giuseppe Benoni the reconstruction of the
Punta della Dogana.
o We builda tower at the end of the island and is crowned with a statue of
Bernardo Falcone representing Fortune and indicatesthe direction of the wind.
• XVIII - XIX
o During these centuries the customs buildingundergoes various
transformationsand restorations, in particularby the Austriansduring the
occupationand the architect Alvise Pigazzi that renewed between 1835 to
1838.

33. Concept
• In the words of architect "The Punta della Dogana building features a simple and
rational structure. Volume creates a triangle, direct reference to the shape of tip of
the island of Dorsoduro, while the interiors are divided into long rectangles, with a
series of parallel walls. "
• The Japanese architect has also held on the occasion of the presentation of the
project in 2007:"This palace floating on the water since the fifteenth century, my
intention is to make it float on the water toward the future, is a very old building
and has been very difficult to study the history of it to retain its original structure
and innovate into the future.I’l use a material of the twentieth century as the
concrete that will integrate within this framework of structures that date back to
the fifteenth century. "

34. Construction
• Due to the nature of the place where the work would take place, all the logistics had to be
designed specifically.
• Having no enough space on land for the requirementsthat all construction required, it was
necessary to create a provisionalport areas of work on stilts.
• To carry more than 10,000 tons of buildingmaterials were used rafts and pontoonsthat had
to take account of the rise and fall of the tide to go through the bridges without crashing,
and that sometimes the material was transported large.
• There were more than 2,000 trips from the mainland.
• 300,000 hours were spent working with an average of 120 workers who had a purpose-built
on stilts dining available.
• Health checks and free screenings, as well as individual andcollectiveinformational
seminars were a feature that created an environmentwithin the work, safety and quality.
The Bath
• In the spring of 2008 were placed stakes in the ground to stabilize the anchoring of the
building,especially at the tip, along with protections against flooding.
• It was probablythe most difficult and delicatestage of the shipyard,the workers worked in
the mud, in some cases with the waist-deep water, protectionagainst water should be the
minimum total collapsebecause it would introduce into the corridor and museum would be
flooded with the first high tide.
• This is a "bathtubof containment"that runs along the surface of the building,with walls up
to 2.10 meters over sea level. Between two layers of concrete, sloping pavementprevents
water entry.

35. • So they could be passed electricity cables, ventilation,heating, etc.. a special technical
corridor was built inside the tub.
• The arrivalof these cables to different rooms was achieved through a technicalpin in
concrete designed by Ando and you could not do any gutter in the old walls to prevent
damage in the building.
• All works were preceded by an archaeologicalsurvey revealedpreventive pavement
belonging to the XVI.
• Internal Openings
Before the restorationPunta della Doganahad 58 openings that connected different
spaces. These have been reduced to 18 to ensure a more orderly movement of a being on
the other.
• Lighting
In the absence of sufficient naturallight, he set a flexible lighting system, using the walls for
support. Along the walls are spent two paralleltubes, the first a light shines that "bathes"
the walls and the second directionallightswere installedthat are orientedas needed.
However, there is a third line that diffuses the light base and inserted into channels placed
in the rafters. For these channels also pass the computer network and system security.
• Soil
Were performed in situ with cement grinding and polishingwhich barely differ expansion
joints

36. Spaces
• Viewpoints
o A 9 meters aboveground level are the terraces of the balcony,accessed by a ladder.
• Torreón
o At the east end at the confluence of the two channels is the tower, on whose dome, 28
meters in height wearing a sculpture that symbolizes the Earth, a sphere paintedgold
and Fortuna, a winged sphinx. It's known as the Tower of Fortune.
• Interior
o The interior structure is dividedinto nine ships transversely, which have each an
average width of 10 meters and a height of seven meters in beam.
o On the ground floor there is a café and a shop - bookstore.
Structure
• ConvincinglyAndo chose to view the architecture as it offers its basic geometrical shape.
Paying close attentionto the restorationof the existing structure, Tadao Ando was granted a
geometric gesture also great effect on the triangularhalf of the plantconstruction.
• In more or less barycentric positionwith respect to the installationof complex triangular,
joined a new space whose height is the rest of the structure, a kind of bolt locatedwithin a
medium stores, built with reinforced concrete smoothed and shiny.
• This axis, aroundwhich the exhibitionspaces and which boil down all the routes, has
assumed the configurationof a cube vertically through the space in which it is attached.

37. Materials
• Bricks
o Approximately150,000 bricks were recovered from buildings XVI or XVII. To counter
the erosion caused by salt water that permeates all the walls of Venice, we used the
traditional technique.
o Masons withdrew one by one the old brick eaten away by salt and replaced by
others, too old, but in good condition.
o Those are bricks recovered from old buildings on land and chosen according to their
size, color or morphologicalcharacteristics.
o Depending on the size and shape, one can deduce the cooking method and time to
which it belongs.
o The abilityof builders to choose when to replace the damaged bricks has made the
restorationof the buildingchanged very little from the originalconstruction of Punta
della Dogana.
o Their participationhas been essential to ensure consistency throughout the building
and adaptedwell to the Japanese concept according to which construction methods
are more important than the buildingitself.
• Original walls
o Some already dilapidatedwalls,but whose structure is kept in good condition,havebeen
left as it is kept up to date, they are testimonyto the strength with which the buildingwas
constructed.

38. • Concrete
o Achieving concrete elements designed by Tadao Ando is exceptional.
o This is a concrete with very specific characteristics: very soft, light gray,
with the joints of the casting very regular, but with some minor
imperfections that reflect the fact that concrete is a living material, the
architect defines as the "marble of the twentieth century."
o A few years ago worked with the same Italian specialists in concrete when
he built theBenetton Factory, in Travis, Italy.
• Preparation of concrete slabs
o Making use of blood thinners and retarders to ensure a constant subject,
its implementation requires a precise schedule in the manufacture of cast
iron.
o The plates were prepared on land and carried on two large barges to the
construction site, keeping the texture necessary by huge heaters and
placing them in the spaces corresponding pumped before filling the
formwork.
o It was necessary to take into account the tides and the outside
temperature to facilitate the exothermic reaction of cement plates.
o The teams may have poured cement at 5 in the morning or 9 at night.

39. • Arcos
o To shape the structure of the arches that separate the different rooms
and at the same time serve as binding the whole 130 were built of
wood sticks.
• Grills
o Placed on the doors of the facade facing the water, are made of steel
and glass and crafts made by the Venetian. In the half-sphere where
windows have been positioned, the windows are up.
o The railings of the staircases are made of steel and glass and on the
look that has been revoked since Venetian stucco.

45. PHOTO GALLERY

47. OTHER WORKS:
Temple Of Light(Osaka,Japan)
Water Temple(Hyogo,Japan)

48. Raika Office
Building(Osaka,Japan)
Suntory
Museum(Osaka,
Japan)