The Centre Pompidou opens a major retrospective of Japanese architect Tadao Ando on 10 October, unpacking and celebrating the core elements of his practice from his use of concrete and geometric volumes to the integration of nature, light and water into his designs.
Born in Osaka in 1941, Ando is well-known to be self-taught, travelling the world to understand architecture across cultures as part of this learning. He set up his practice Tadao Ando and Associates in 1969.
Koshino House, 1981/1984. Photography: Shinkenchiku-sha
Since then, he has completed over 300 projects across his 50-year career, picking up the Pritzker prize in 1995. The exhibition traverses periods of his production from his first house project in 1976, the Azuma House in Sumiyoshi, to his work on Naoshima island that commenced in 1988 and continues today, the Church of Light in 1989 and his upcoming La Bourse de Commerce in Pari, scheduled to complete in autumn 2019.
Fifty projects will be presented in detail within the exhibition alongside 180 drawings, including travel notebooks, personal photographs taken by Ando and 70 original models, allowing visitors to experience the process, inspiration and completed results of Ando’s architectural journey together.
Festival, 1984. Photography: Tadao Ando
One part of the exhibition includes an installation surrounding Ando’s work at Naoshima, and his dialogue with the natural landscape. Working with the natural topography and creatively modelling the land, Ando buried a museum of modern art into the hillside, sculpting and merging his architecture with the rocks and the horizon beyond. Ando is working on two further museums for the island, that has now become a beloved monument and a site of pilgrimage to architects.
The thematic pathway of the exhibition through five sections looks to communicate Ando’s experience, interest and ethics of design, uniting projects by common ground and values such as surface, shape, nature and spirituality. §
