The Seto Inland Sea in Japan, nestled between the Hiroshima, Okayama, Hyogo, Kagawa and Ehime prefectures that form the Seto Inland region, is a treasure trove of 20th and 21st-century architecture gems. This is not only the result of the local architects' inspiring visions. It also stands as testament to a series of clients with a forward-thinking stance and deep ambition – a confluence that created the perfect breeding grounds for pioneering building design.

Join our architecture tour to find out more.

Seto Inland Sea: context and origins

The emergence of avant-garde post-war architecture in the Seto Inland region owes much to the presence of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, built by Metabolist architect Kenzo Tange in 1955. Commissioned by the state to mourn the victims of the nuclear attack, the institution was designed by Tange, a native of Ehime Prefecture's Shikoku island, which faces the Seto Inland Sea.

Instead of Japan's traditional timber frame style, it was constructed using concrete, a cutting edge material for the time.

'Tange applied the Japanese-specific timber construction method, built with columns and beams, to concrete used in Western structures. This method spread throughout Japan,' says Terunobu Fujimori, an architectural historian who interviewed Tange during the architect's lifetime. The technique is particularly evident in the Seto Inland region's buildings.

There was plenty to build following the destruction of WWII. Kagawa Prefecture suffered particularly from air raids by US bombers. In Takamatsu City alone, 73 public buildings were destroyed, including the prefectural office, 264 factories and companies, and 90 temples and shrines.

Politicians and local business leaders wanted new public buildings that would be cherished by all and that would demonstrate the ideals of Japan's newly-formed democracy. The charge was led by Masanori Kaneko, who served as Governor of Kagawa Prefecture for 24 years. Guided by the conviction that ‘politics and art are one and integrated as a whole. Both must be dedicated to enriching the life of the citizens,’ Governor Kaneko commissioned the construction of several civic buildings and cultural facilities, which earned him his nickname, ‘design governor’.

The result is one of the richest assortments of architecture in Japan, by some of the world's leading design names. Here are eight highlights from the Seto Inland Sea region.

8 buildings to see around Japan's Seto Inland Sea

Kagawa Prefectural Office, Kagawa Prefecture

Architect: Kenzo Tange
Year: 1958

The Kagawa Prefectural Government Building was designed by Kenzo Tange (1913–2005), who was deeply influenced by Le Corbusier and practised with the latter's disciple, Kunio Maekawa. The building incorporates traditional Japanese design elements – such as columns and beams reminiscent of timber construction, and balconies with handrails – but uses concrete, just as he did at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum.

Responding to then-Governor Kaneko's request for ‘an civic building befitting the democratic age,’ Tange conceived a ‘prefectural office open to the citizens.’ This spirit is most strikingly embodied in the ground floor's pilotis – a column-supported, wall-less atrium. The pilotis created a dramatic, publicly accessible space that allowed free passage for all citizens who might not otherwise have ventured in.

The ceiling features wooden louvres made from local pine timber, while the floor incorporates paving stones of Aji stone and Shodo island granite (both found nearby), alongside pebbles collected from the ocean floor. Tange's distinctive design, blending Japanese and Western elements, remains a powerful statement today.

Seto Inland Sea History and Folklore Museum, Kagawa Prefecture

Architect: Tadashi Yamamoto
Year: 1973

Perched atop the Goshikidai hills overlooking the waters between Okayama and Kagawa Prefectures, the Seto Inland Sea History and Folklore Museum is a facility conceived to convey the life and culture of the region. It displays fishing gear, wood boats and domestic items from the area. The stone-built structure was designed to harmonise with the natural surroundings by architect Tadashi Yamamoto (1923–98), who was also an official at the Kagawa Prefectural Government.

During his tenure at the prefectural office, Yamamoto nurtured his architectural philosophy through collaborations and exchanges with figures such as Tange, artist Isamu Noguchi and designer George Nakashima through which he was exposed to a new wave of post-war modernist design. The stone-piled exterior, made from the volcanic rock andesite, evokes a pirate's castle. The stone-piling was overseen by Masatoshi Izumi, a stone sculptor and production partner of Noguchi, who had a workshop in Kagawa. The concrete walls were built using formwork techniques to reveal wood grain patterns, blending naturally into the hilly landscape of Goshikidai.

Teshima Art Museum, Kagawa Prefecture

Architect: Ryue Nishizawa and Rei Naito
Year: 2010

Perched on a hill near Karato Port in Teshima – an island between Shodoshima and Naoshima in the Seto Inland Sea – the Teshima Art Museum is a collaborative work by architect Ryue Nishizawa and artist Rei Naito. Built on a section of land where terraced rice fields, once left fallow, were regenerated with the help of the locals, the architecture evokes an image of a water droplet. Measuring 40 metres along its short side and 60 metres in length, with a maximum height of 4.5 metres, the building is a concrete shell structure without a single pillar. Its smooth volume, made of free-form curves, appears to merge seamlessly with the surrounding terrain.

Integrated with this architecture is Rei Naito's installation work ‘Matrix’, which explores the animating force (anima) of nature. This piece incorporates an underground spring and throughout the day, water emerges from numerous points on the floor, creating a fountain. Surrounding sounds of nature, light, wind, and rain come through the two openings above, creating a space where environment – which changes seasonally – art and architecture are integrated.

Inujima Seirensho Art Museum, Okayama Prefecture

Architect: Hiroshi Sambuichi
Year: 2008

The Inujima Seirensho Art Museum – approximately a ten-minute cruise ride from Hoden Port on mainland Okayama prefecture – is a museum centred on the theme of ‘heritage, architecture, art, and environment.’ It was created by renovating a copper smelter that operated for only ten years from 1909 before falling into disuse. The environmentally conscious architecture, conceived by Hiroshima-based architect Hiroshi Sambuichi, incorporates existing chimneys and Karami bricks – slag bricks made from the residue left after copper is removed during the smelting process – while utilising natural energy sources like solar and geothermal power.

The museum incorporates an advanced water purification system harnessing the power of surrounding plants, evolving like a living organism as part of Inujima's perpetual natural cycle. Art works evoking the spirit of novelist Yukio Mishima, who rang a wakeup call to Japan's rapid modernisation, fill the space which once contributed to the country's industrial evolution but now exists only as a shadow trace – making a comment about the future of the country and its relationship to its past through art and architecture.

Kurashiki International Hotel, Okayama Prefecture

Architect: Shitaro Urabe
Year: 1963

Opened in 1963, the Kurashiki International Hotel is as popular now as when it first launched. Founded in response to growing post-war calls from local businesses and the government for an international-standard hotel in Kurashiki, a local city in Okayama prefecture, the hotel was born from the vision of its founder, Ohara Soichiro, who sought to create a modest but practical establishment where heartfelt hospitality prevailed.

When architect Shintaro Urabe (1909–1991) designed the building, he intended it to blend into Kurashiki’s landscape. Constructed in reinforced concrete, it was conceived as a fusion of Japanese and Western styles. The traditional namako kabe – a type of wall in coloured tiles found in Kurashiki’s historical district – appears alongside pitched kabe hisashi eaves, resembling mini roofs, which are layered on top of each other across all floors and nod to local construction typologies. Urabe’s vision described that, ‘by the time the ginkgo trees planted by the hotel at its opening have grown into spreading trees, this hotel too will have put down deep, strong roots in local and among the people of Kurashiki, welcoming visitors from around the world.’

Elements like the staircases, handrails, and wall clocks remain unchanged since the hotel's opening. Urabe, while planning the design, sat with the hotel's general manager, gaining deep insight into how the hotel might operate – such as the importance of maintaining the line of sight for guests seated in the lobby and how international guests spend their time in their rooms. This resulted in his meticulous detailing of the interior. The hotel is a source of pride for the local citizens of Kurashiki, and a piece of architecture that is truly embedded in the local life.

Honpukuji Temple, The Water Temple, Hyogo Prefecture

Architect: Tadao Ando
Year: 1991

One of the Buddhist Shingon sect’s temples, Honpukuji, dating back to the 12th century, is located on Awaji Island in Hyogo Prefecture, overlooking Osaka Bay. Enshrined here is a statue of Yakushi Nyorai, which is also designated an Important Cultural Property. In 1991, Tadao Ando designed the new main hall, Mizumido – Water Temple – to honour this deity. Accessed by a wooden approach leading to the new main hall, Ando’s temple is not something one would expect from an ordinary Japanese temple: an austere concrete wall divides the secular world from the sacred realm.

Circling it to enter, visitors encounter a 40m long elliptical pond cast in concrete. Floating within are water lilies, a Buddhist symbol. A staircase leading underground is positioned centrally, bisecting the lotus pond. Descending these steps, as if burrowing beneath the earth, leads to the main hall. In the late afternoon, when the sunlight streams in from the west and layers different colours on the vermilion-painted walls, the hall is bathed in a tapestry of crimson hues, offering visitors a unique experience where time and space seem to merge.

Yodogo Geihinkan, Hyogo Prefecture

Architect: Frank Lloyd Wright
Year: 1924

In 1924, Frank Lloyd Wright (1867–1959) designed this residence for Taizaemon Yamamura, a local who ran a sake brewery. Shortly after the Second World War, it became the property of Yodogawa Steel Works Co., Ltd., and has been open to the public since 1989. Wright undertook the original design in 1918, but soon returned to America, so completion was entrusted to his disciples in Japan, Arata Endo (1889–1951) and Makoto Minami (1892–1951). Following Wright's exploration of the fusion of nature and architecture, the architecture exploited the site's undulating terrain, extending from the nearby Rokko Mountains, and the floors are arranged in a stepped configuration running north-south.

A notable feature is the 120 small windows arranged throughout the house, which allow natural light to filter through during different hours of the day, creating an ever-changing interior atmosphere. The use of sculpted Oya stone is another unique and unusual element. The material is commonly used for exteriors, but here, it features expansively in the interior. Oya stone sourced from Oya town in Tochigi Prefecture is soft and easy to work with, and was a favourite material for Wright when he worked on the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo.

Kiro-san Observatory, Ehime Prefecture

Architect: Kengo Kuma and Associates
Year: 1994

Kiro-san Observatory crowns the 307.8 metres-high Kiro mountain Observatory Park in Ōshima in Ehime Prefecture. As Oshima is among more than 700 islands dotted around the Seto Inland Sea, the site commands panoramic views of the world's first triple suspension bridge, one of Japan's three major tidal currents, as well as the highest peak in western Japan – Mount Ishizuchi – when the weather is clear. However, as the site sits within the Kiro-san Observatory Park, part of the Seto Inland Sea National Park, regulations prevented the construction of a conventional protruding structure that might unduly spoil the mountain scenery.

Kengo Kuma, whose studio designed the Observatory, says, ‘We attempted to make architecture disappear on the summit of Ōshima’. Avoiding the fate of conventional protruding observatories – where the act of construction distracts from the landscape – Kiro-san Observatory is instead folded into its environment. Its structure is buried within the terrain, forming an observation deck that remains imperceptible from the outside while offering views from within.

Modernist architecture emerged in the early 20th century as a reaction against the ornamental styles of the Victorian era and Art Nouveau. Rejecting decoration, modernism prioritised function, embracing new technologies and materials that arose from the Industrial Revolution. It also responded to the growing need for housing as a result of urbanisation. This was architecture for a new century, employing new construction methods and a fresh aesthetic that addressed social, technological and cultural shifts.

A whistle-stop introduction to modernist architecture

Throughout the 20th century, modernism spawned distinct regional variants. Le Corbusier's five points of architecture (more on this below) came to define the International Style, which is probably what most people think of when they think of modernism, characterised by clean lines, a ‘truth to materials’, and hallmarks such as flat roofs, glass curtain walls and steel frames.

In Europe, the Bauhaus School emerged as a prominent source of modernist thinking, with offshoots including brutalist architecture. The United States became a major centre for modernism, developing variants such as Frank Lloyd Wright’s Prairie School, California modernism and midcentury modernism. In Brazil and other equatorial regions, tropical modernism adapted the movement’s principles to local climates, while, in India, the quest for a postcolonial identity gave rise to its own iteration.

In the post-war period, modernist styles became the dominant aesthetic for institutional and civic buildings – known as late modernism (1950s-1970s). With the rise of minimalist modernism, which provided the blueprint for skyscrapers, and brutalism, which was often used in urban planning, the style faced mounting criticism for being sterile and monotonous. The architectural pendulum, as ever, began to swing back, sparking a renewed interest in complexity that heralded the rise of postmodernism.

Famous modernist architects

To tackle the long list of famous modernist architects, we have organised them by their continent of origin. This list is by no means exhaustive – modernism's vast and diverse nature means there will be many more – yet this is a strong starting point for the movement's most influential proponents.

Further, it reflects the societal imbalances of the 20th century – for instance, in terms of gender. Architecture has historically been a male-dominated profession, with women often pigeonholed into interiors or furniture design rather than building design. Recognition and attribution biases further obscured their contributions, frequently reducing their roles to collaboration or assistance.

Eurocentric aesthetic standards have also shaped the history of modernism, with Western movements often elevated as universal benchmarks, which is why we have chosen to represent a geographically diverse selection. That said, we have started with Europe, where modernism originated.

Europe

Le Corbusier (1887-1965)

Style: International style
Famous works: Villa Savoye; Unité d'Habitation; Chapel of Notre Dame du Haut, all France; the city of Chandigarh, India

Swiss-French architect and urban planner Le Corbusier viewed architecture as ‘a machine for living’, and was one of modernism’s most influential figures. He developed the ‘Five Points of Architecture’ – a set of principles advocating the use of pilotis (stilts), open floor plans, free façades, horizontal windows and rooftop gardens – which essentially constitutes the familiar modernist aesthetic. Le Corbusier is also known for the pivotal role he played in designing the Indian city of Chandigarh.

Walter Gropius (1883-1969)

Style: Bauhaus
Famous works: Bauhaus Dessau, Germany; Gropius House, USA

Walter Gropius founded the Bauhaus School in Germany in 1919 (later forced to close by the Nazis in 1933). The movement embraced key modernist ideas such as form following function and simplicity in design, while also introducing distinctive concepts like the fusion of art and industry and the use of materials such as steel and glass. The Bauhaus building in Dessau, the art school’s HQ, is an iconic example of this architecture.

Alvar Aalto (1898-1976)

Style: Humanist modernism, organic architecture
Famous works: Paimio Sanatorium; Finlandia Hall, both Finland; Viipuri Library, Russia

Alvar Aalto was a Finnish architect and furniture designer who embraced functional modernist principles while humanising them through the use of natural materials – especially wood – and organic forms. His career coincided with Finland’s rapid industrialisation in the early 20th century, helping establish the style that he developed with his wife, Aino Aalto, as a blueprint for the Scandinavian modern aesthetic.

Eileen Gray (1878-1976)

Style: International style
Famous works: Villa E-1027; Tempe à Pailla, both France

Irish designer and architect Eileen Gray struggled to establish herself in a male-dominated field, but is now celebrated as one of the most important figures in 20th-century design. Her style blended art deco elegance with modernist functionality, exemplified in the E-1027 house in France, a minimalist villa featuring built-in furniture and sliding panels, which was incorrectly attributed to Le Corbusier for many years.

Lisbeth Sachs (1914-2002)

Style: Organic architecture, humanist modernism
Famous works: Summer House Strauss, Switzerland

The work of Lisbeth Sachs, one of the first registered female architects in Switzerland, is marked by an organic sensibility, with curvilinear forms, expressive materials and structural clarity. She created spaces where interior and exterior boundaries blur, exemplified in her 1976 project, the Summer House Strauss. Her long-overdue recognition culminated with a dedicated showcase at the Swiss Pavilion during this year’s Venice Architecture Biennale (2025).

Africa

Hassan Fathy (1900-1989)

Style: Vernacular modernism
Famous works: New Gourna Village, Egypt

Egyptian architect Hassan Fathy blended modernist principles with traditional building techniques, using indigenous materials such as mud brick and vernacular methods like Nubian vaults and passive cooling to achieve climate-responsive design. Culturally, Fathy sought to develop community-centered, affordable housing for rural, economically disadvantaged Egyptians. This philosophy is exemplified in New Gourna, a planned resettlement village near Luxor, designed in the 1940s.

Demas Nwoko (b. 1935)

Style: African modernism
Famous works: Dominican Institute, Nigeria

Demas Nwoko, a Nigerian architect, artist and designer, integrated indigenous African motifs, materials and crafts into modern architectural practices, challenging Western conventions. He viewed design as a force to positively shape the environment, seeking to create meaningful cultural and social spaces for African communities, such as the educational Dominican Institute, built in the 1970s.

Asia

Charles Correa (1930-2015)

Style: Contextual modernism
Famous works: Gandhi Memorial Museum; Kanchanjunga Apartments; Jawahar Kala Kendra, all India

Although he was born in Mozambique, Charles Correa is primarily associated with Indian architecture, with much of his work addressing urban planning challenges in the country and helping redefine national architecture in the post-independence era. His style fused traditional elements with modernist principles while adapting to local climate and culture. The Gandhi Memorial Museum in Ahmedabad showcases Correa’s signature use of open spaces, natural light and ventilation.

Balkrishna Doshi (1927-2023)

Style: Humanist modernism, brutalism
Famous works: Indian Institute of Management; Aranya low-cost housing, both India

Balkrishna Doshi was profoundly influenced by mentors Le Corbusier and Louis Kahn, but forged his own Indian interpretation of modernism. His work often featured elements suited to India’s climate, such as open courtyards, shaded terraces and natural ventilation. Awarded the Pritzker Prize in 2018, Doshi was celebrated for his humanistic approach, which focuses on low-cost housing, communal spaces and sustainable urban design.

Geoffrey Bawa (1919-2003)

Style: Tropical modernism
Famous works: Kandalama Hotel; Lunuganga Estate; Sri Lankan parliament building, all Sri Lanka

Sri Lankan architect Geoffrey Bawa is widely regarded as the father of tropical modernism – an architectural style that merges modernist principles with the demands of tropical climates. His designs frequently blur the lines between indoor spaces and lush natural surroundings, featuring open plans and natural materials. Bawa’s work is climate-responsive, with examples including the Kandalama and Lunuganga hotels, where you can stay today.

Tadao Ando (b. 1941)

Style: Minimalist modernism
Famous works: Church of the Light; Naoshima Contemporary Art Museum; Chichu Art Museum; the Koshino House; the Water Temple, all Japan

Tadao Ando buildings are generally minimalist sanctuaries crafted from exposed concrete with plenty of natural light and water features. His work reflects the Japanese Zen philosophy, with a focus on calm, contemplation and harmony with nature. Iconic projects like the Church of Light in Osaka and the Naoshima Contemporary Art Museum redefined contemporary Japanese architecture.

Minnette de Silva (1918-1998)

Style: Tropical modernism
Famous works: Karunaratne House; Pieris House; Watapuluwa Housing Scheme, all Sri Lanka

Minette de Silva was the first Asian woman elected as an associate of RIBA. She blended modernist principles with crafts, materials and forms suited to the tropical climate of her native Sri Lanka, using, for example, methods such as rammed earth and wattle-and-daub and features like open courtyards, passive ventilation and adjustable partitions. De Silva’s work was largely overlooked due to the gender biases of the 20th-century architectural establishment, but her influence on figures like Geoffrey Bawa is being increasingly recognised.

North America

Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959)

Style: Organic architecture, Prairie style
Famous works: Fallingwater, Pennsylvania; Guggenheim Museum, New York; Robie House, Chicago

Frank Lloyd Wright revolutionised American architecture over his 70-year career with his philosophy of organic architecture – buildings that harmonise with their natural surroundings. His Prairie style, prominent between 1900 and 1917, sought to create a distinctly American aesthetic inspired by the landscapes of the Midwest, featuring cantilevered roofs, open floor plans and horizontal lines. Beyond his Prairie homes, Wright’s celebrated works include Fallingwater, a masterclass in environmental integration.

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886-1969)

Style: International Style, minimalist modernism
Famous works: Seagram Building (with Philip Johnson), New York; Crown Hall, Chicago

Though he was born in Germany, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe made his mark in the US after emigrating there, helping to define the glass-and-steel aesthetic that laid the foundation for the modern skyscraper. The Seagram Building became, in many ways, the global blueprint for corporate architecture. Credited with popularising the phrase ‘less is more’, van der Rohe’s designs are characterised by clean lines, open floor plans and light-filled, transparent spaces. Read more about Mies van der Rohe's life and works.

Richard Neutra (1892-1970)

Style: Mid-century modernism, California modernism
Famous works: Kaufmann Desert House; Lovell Health House, both California

Austrian-American architect Richard Neutra was a key figure in midcentury modernism, particularly in Southern California, where buildings such as the Kaufmann Desert House in Palm Springs helped define the California modern style. His designs are sleek, light-filled and open plan, emphasising health, lifestyle and a connection with the outdoors through the use of glass and natural materials.

Louis Kahn (1901-1974)

Style: Monumental modernism
Famous works: Salk Institute, California; Kimbell Art Museum, Texas

Louis Kahn, recipient of both the AIA Gold Medal and the RIBA Gold Medal, was renowned for his monumental, monolithic buildings that showcase their weight, materials and structure rather than concealing them. Kahn’s designs blend modernism with classical influences, characterised by geometric forms and materials like brick and concrete.

Charles and Ray Eames (1907-1978 and 1912-1988)

Style: Mid-century modernism
Famous works: Eames House, California

Perhaps two of the most influential figures in 20th-century design, married couple Charles and Ray Eames are renowned for their contributions to architecture, furniture and industrial design. Their use of new materials like moulded plywood and fibreglass combined functionality with aesthetics. The Eames House, built in 1949 in Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles, stands as a landmark of midcentury modern residential architecture.

South America

Oscar Niemeyer (1907-2012)

Style: Brazilian modernism, sculptural modernism
Famous works: Civic buildings of Brasília; Niterói Museum of Contemporary Art, both Brazil; United Nations Headquarters, US

Strongly influenced by Le Corbusier, Oscar Niemeyer’s use of free-form concrete, often cast in sinuous curves that echoed the natural landscapes of Brazil, led some to dub him a ‘sculptor of monuments’. Along with urban planners Lúcio Costa and Joaquim Cardozo, Niemeyer helped design the new capital of Brasília in the 1950s, including the National Congress, the cathedral and the Palácio da Alborada.

Lina Bo Bardi (1914-1992)

Style: Brazilian modernism, humanist modernism, brutalism
Famous works: SESC Pompéia; Glass House; São Paulo Museum of Art, all Brazil

Born in Italy, Lina Bo Bardi is celebrated for her contributions to Latin American architecture, particularly in Brazil, where she navigated challenges as both a foreigner and a woman. An advocate for architecture’s social potential, she created buildings marked by cultural and material sensitivity, blending brutalist forms with Brazilian vernacular influences.

Carlos Raúl Villanueva (1900-1975)

Style: Regional modernism, brutalism
Famous works: Ciudad Universitaria de Caracas; Olympic Stadium, both Venezuela; Aula Magna, Mexico

Venezuelan but raised in Europe, Carlos Raúl Villanueva brought modernist ideals to Latin America, where he fused them with local cultural and climatic contexts. A defining concept in his work was the idea of ‘synthesis of the arts’, a belief that architecture should be integrated with painting, sculpture and other visual arts. Villanueva also drew from brutalism, with extensive use of reinforced concrete, and his projects often had a social dimension – he played a major role in shaping the urban fabric of cities like Caracas and Maracay.

Revered architect Tadao Ando has disseminated his minimalist vision throughout the world. The Japanese octogenarian has also spread his wings to sign off on small-scale projects, including watches. But save for a few exquisite dial designs for Bulgari and a collaboration with Seiko, the Cauny Ando is his first clean slate watch design.

Tadao Ando, born in 1941 in war-torn Osaka, is a remarkably self-taught architect and the quietly spoken doyen of Japanese minimalism. Ando is known for his intense focus on the interplay between light and simple geometric forms – often exhibiting scenographic lines, but how does this translate to the micro-scale of a watch?

This project was initiated by the revived manufacturer Cauny, a legacy Swiss brand now under Portuguese ownership with a collection called The Architects Of Time. Within this portfolio, we find MoMA-stocked watches designed by fellow Pritzker award winners Alvaro Siza and Rafael Moneo, among others, and now Tadao Ando. The watch itself requires careful headline composition as it is a pared-back design inspired by an apple.

Ando-san says: 'This watch reflects the spirit of the green apple – unripe, a little sour, yet full of promise. American Poet Samuel Ullman wrote that youth is not a period of life, but a state of mind: the courage to face difficulty without fear, the resilience to keep dreaming despite setbacks.' The poetically loaded ideas of Tadao Ando are manifested in two versions of what is a watch in its purest sense.

The Cauny Ando has the same clean-slate approach as the Ikepod, the line of Marc Newson-designed wristwear. Here, alongside the minimalism is exhibited the architect’s passionate approach and sense of balance.

From the small crown to the apple leaf-inspired minute hand, each element is a distilled version of the familiar, without sacrificing function for form. The Cauny Ando has a smooth 37.5 or 31.5mm case with a lugless, pebble-round design. A domed dial and sapphire crystal underlines the brand’s emphasis on a durable elegance, with a thin Swiss quartz movement ensuring an understated form that slips under a cuff. The Cauny Ando comes in two variations, with the deliciously fresh green version appearing as the most literal interpretation of Ando-san’s vision. For the more monochromatically inclined, the brushed steel version features a vertically brushed dial, riffing off Tadao Ando’s love of steel and concrete, paired with a stitched black leather strap.

The Naoshima New Museum of Art, the newest member in the celebrated family of cultural spaces that form the Benesse Art Site Naoshima, has just opened its doors. Set in a wider site that spreads across the islands of Naoshima, Teshima, and Inujima in the waters between Japan's main bodies of land, Honshu, Shikoku and Kyushu, the new space is dedicated to contemporary Asian art – and has been designed by Japanese architecture master and Naoshima stalwart Tadao Ando (marking his tenth commission for the same client, the Fukutake Foundation, which is behind the Benesse initiatives).

Inside Tadao Ando's Naoshima New Museum of Art

The Naoshima New Museum of Art is not just one more extension to a beloved arts and community home, but forms a seminal project for its wider cultural site. Soichiro Fukutake, who has led the Benesse Art Site Naoshima since its inception in the late 1980s, has been the force behind its numerous venues and draws in the Seto Inland Sea institution, from Tadao Ando’s Chichu Art Museum (2004) and Valley Gallery (2022) to Hiroshi Sambuichi's Naoshima Hall and Matabe House (2017). Conceived as a real legacy project for an ever-thriving cultural organisation, the addition was designed with the next generations' and Naoshima's future in mind.

'The Naoshima New Museum of Art focuses primarily on Asian contemporary art. This is because, in addition to our expectations that art from these regions will grow in interesting ways going into the future, I believe that we, as Japanese people, must be conscious about our belonging to Asia both geopolitically and culturally. For myself, Asian sensibilities are based on the awareness that human beings are a part of nature and hence living with nature,' says Soichiro Fukutake.

'Having our Western art collection exhibited at our existing museums and art facilities, together with our Asian art collection, including Japanese art being shown at the Naoshima New Museum of Art, the possibilities to develop a comprehensive and well-balanced exhibition program in Benesse Art Site Naoshima are greatly expanded.'

Spanning three floors – one above and two below ground, connected by a subtly dramatic, single staircase – the museum was designed to be close to the ground and echo the island's vernacular forms. Its low volume and pitched roof speak to that, while black plaster on the outside walls that matches the traditional burned-cedar method typically used on the island, and pebble walls inspired by the houses of the Honmura area, further ensure the structure feels at home in its setting.

A carefully designed skylight brings natural the sun deep into the lower floors, and a cafe with an open terrace provides an opportunity for visitors to pause and enjoy the views of the surrounding sea.

Ando explains: 'It is my belief that the experiences in Naoshima will forever linger in the memories of those who visit the island. The songs we listened to and the works of art we saw in our childhood are never forgotten. I hope that many children will visit Naoshima and be able to feel their senses being stimulated so that they can open up doors to a new world.'

The architect continues: 'Such “moving experiences” have the power to nourish human beings and refine our senses, which will in turn lead to more opportunities to be emotionally moved. Naoshima is an island like no other, which is filled with such opportunities. For the Naoshima New Museum of Art, I once again endeavoured to build a place that cultivates sensibilities and moves people’s hearts.'

The Naoshima New Museum of Art launches with an inaugural exhibition titled ‘From the Origin to the Future’. The show, spread across the building's eight galleries, comprises brand new works by 12 artists and groups – some new to the foundation's environment, and some valued, long-term collaborators, such as Cai Guo-Qiang, Takashi Murakami, Do Ho Suh (also currently showing at London's Tate Modern) and Pannaphan Yodmanee.

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The story goes that Tadao Ando had become interested in building through watching carpenters work on his family home as a child. Then he saw a book on Le Corbusier in a second-hand bookshop, he saved up for it and it was through tracing the drawings in that book that he learnt architecture. Like his idol, Corb, Ando was self-taught. Now, it is chunky blockbuster books on the Japanese one-time boxer, which populate the shelves of show apartments, five-star hotels and upmarket design bookstores.

Tadao Ando: a master is born

Ando, who was born in Osaka in 1941, arrived on the global scene during the zenith of the decorative excesses of post-modernism in the 1980s. His work, with its austere concrete surfaces and dazzling light, admitted through slits and crosses for openings, also cast deep shadows, causing a sensation. He reinvigorated the rigour of modernism and his work ushered in minimalist architecture as a new global aspiration.

Establishing his practice in Osaka in 1968, Ando’s work was influenced by Western modernist architecture and tempered by an Eastern sensibility. There is much cliche written about the influence of zen on architecture but in Ando’s spare forms in which the void, the shadow, and often the absence of any obvious signs of comfort or domesticity, those assumptions do seem to ring true.

Tadao Ando's early works

The architect’s early houses, including the 1976 Azuma House (a completely blind concrete townhouse illuminated by an internal courtyard) and the Rokko housing complex outside Kobe (1983-93) built into a steep hillside, revealed his now characteristic in-situ concrete with the formwork bolt-holes left exposed. It was left to strong light and delicate shadows on the textured surface of the material to create interest. And interest there was.

It was two remarkable chapels which brought him global accolades and made him such an influential figure. The Church on the Water in Hokkaido (1988) and the Church of the Light in Ibaraki, Osaka (1989) were defined by exquisitely minimal interiors in which light and nature were employed to great theatrical effect to create spaces of intense contemplation and remarkable celebration through both symbol and landscape. The cross-shaped opening at the latter burnt the symbol onto the retinas of the congregation in a visceral and symbolic act while the view over the reflecting pool towards the forest at the former created a revived zen garden of modern spatial practice which evoked earlier forms including the Heikki and Kaija Siren’s Ottaniemi Chapel of 1957.

Tadao Ando: influences and inspiration

Unlike some of his contemporaries, Ando eschewed theory, his work draws its power from its often surprisingly simple geometries and the elemental effects of light and mass. ’An architect’s duty’ Ando told me last year ‘is to convert feelings into physical form.’

Beyond the obvious influence of Le Corbusier (notably the church at Ronchamp), Ando has acknowledged the huge impact of Western architecture. When I asked him about his influences he mentioned everything from the Pantheon (look up at its concrete dome with the single source of light and it becomes obvious) and the Louisiana Museum in Humlabaek, Denmark alongside, of course, Louis Kahn and Frank Lloyd Wright, who were themselves in turn heavily influenced by Japanese architecture.

Contemporary work and Tadao Ando's 'blockbuster' projects

From small houses and chapels, Ando’s reputation and practice went ballistic in the 2000s with some spectacular structures across the world including the Fort Worth Modern Art Museum, the Chichu Art Museum, its geometric forms set into the earth of the island of Naoshima, the Benesse House on the same island, the Pulitzer Arts Foundation in St Louis and an extension to the Clark Institute in Williamstown. You might argue though that as his practice grew and globalised, much of the elemental power of his work was lost in an increasingly self-referential oeuvre.

More recently Ando has been working with existing buildings and his sparse, powerful forms seem to chime with the raw brick and timber beams of the the Punta Della Dogana in Venice and, more recently, with the gasometer/Pantheon shape of the Bourse de Commerce in Paris (both superbly reimagined as art museums for luxury magnate Francois Pinault.

In person, Ando is small, thoughtful and completely without pretension. His once dark mop of Beatles-type hair has thinned a little and the bags beneath his eyes have grown darker but he has survived innumerable brushes with illness (notably a cancer that was meant to be terminal and have long dispensed with him) and he still appears pugnacious and lithe, with a little of the former boxer’s stance about him. The last time I met him he was emerging, apparently dazed, from a meeting with Kim Kardashian and her then-husband Kanye West, a little bruised perhaps by the stress of designing them a house (apparently now much altered by the rapper).

Ando is a survivor, a figure as tough, quiet and thoughtful as his architecture. He revived concrete from the nadir of later modernism and, more successfully than any other designer, reconciled the formal inventiveness and power of modernism with a Japanese self-restraint and admiration of light, darkness, surface, water, Earth and sky. Not bad for the boy who had to save for a month to buy that Le Corbusier book.

Tadao Ando: Key buildings

Pulitzer Arts Foundation, St Louis, USA (2001)

The Pulitzer Arts Foundation in St Louis is Japanese master Tadao Ando's very first freestanding public commission in the United States, completed in 2001. Starting in 2014, the original building underwent a makeover, in consultation with Ando, to accommodate the foundation's growing needs. Responding to an increasing demand for space, the new project includes a significant expansion of the foundation's gallery area.

Chichu Art Museum, Naoshima (2004)

A retrospective at Centre Pompidou in Paris in 2018 revisited lots of Ando's early works, including his schemes at Naoshima island in Japan. The Chichu Art Museum there was one of the architect's several schemes for the same client, the Bennesse Art Foundation, and is a landmark in its author's portfolio for its sensitive, sunken nature.

Modern Art Museum, Fort Worth, USA (2004)

In the same year that saw the completion of Chichu Art Museum in Naoshima, Tadao Ando completed one of his most well known projects in the US - the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. Its tall, glass and concrete forms look grand and at the same time ethereal, seemingly floating over a reflective pool.

UDEM’s ‘Gate of Creation’, Monterrey, Mexico (2013)

Founded in 1969, UDEM is a private university with some 12,000 students. When the design and development of a new, state-of-the-art home for the school’s most creative disciplines was discussed, Osaka-based, Pritzker Prize-winning architect Tadao Ando was top of the wish list. Named after one of the university’s chief benefactors and a legendary local entrepreneur, the Centre Roberto Garza Sada for Art, Architecture and Design was a project of grand scale and ambition for both client and architect. ‘I was going to make a design that was very daring, something that would send images of Monterrey around the world,’ says Ando.

Casa Wabi Foundation, Mexico (2014)

Set up by artist Bosco Sodi and directed by Patricia Martin (former director and curator of La Colección Jumex), Casa Wabi art foundation is situated on the outskirts of Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca, about 500 miles southwest of Mexico City. Sodi 'always admired Ando's architecture' and approached the Japanese Pritzker Prize-winning architect for the design of his foundation's new headquarters. There is one more Japanese connection - Casa Wabi is named after the Japanese ideal of wabi-sabi, which revolves around the beauty of life's imperfections.

152 Elizabeth Street, New York, USA (2016)

152 Elizabeth Street is a beautifully formed, seven-storey, seven-residence building situated in the heart of Nolita that completed at the end of 2016. It was Ando’s first residential building in Manhattan. Developed by Sumaida + Khurana, a local firm that is making it a point to work with renowned architects that have yet to build in New York City, 152 Elizabeth Street was poised to set a new standard in luxury living.

Bourse de Commerce, Paris, France (2021)

Opened in 2021, the Bourse de Commerce in Paris is the latest home for François Pinault to show works from his phenomenal art collection. This is the third time the French businessman has chosen Japanese architect Tadao Ando to convert a historical building into a contemporary museum for his collection (following the Palazzo Grassi and the Punta della Dogana, both in Venice).

Shinmonzen hotel, Kyoto, Japan (2022)

Its façade ticks all the boxes of a traditional Kyoto machiya townhouse, from the low-rise symmetry of its dark timber to its curved roof tiles. Step inside The Shinmonzen, however, and the atmosphere veers into the future: a long corridor, sharply lined with a sweep of raw concrete on one side, and vertical wood slats on the other, flows deep into the unexpectedly modern building. Heritage and contemporary creativity stand in playful contrast throughout this new hotel in Kyoto’s historic Gion district. Despite its external appearance, it was built from scratch, designed by none other than Japanese architecture master Tadao Ando, and dreamt up by hotelier Paddy McKillen as the far-flung little sister of Villa La Coste (W*214), the sleek temple to modern art and architecture in southern France.

Valley Gallery, Naoshima, Japan (2022)

Merging nature, art and architecture, Valley Gallery marked 30 years since Tadao Ando's first building on the island, the Benesse House Museum, which was Naoshima’s first art museum, as well as a hotel. Nestled in the base of a deep valley, the new gallery is a modest structure with an angular steel roof and a trapezoidal floor plan informed by the landscape. Ando aimed ‘to create an independent architectural space while preserving as much of the existing topography and trees as possible’, in order to make the most of the site’s potential.

He Art Museum, China (2022)

Southern China’s traditional distinctive round buildings reflect the ancient belief that the sky is round and divine and the earth is square. Now Pritzker prize-winning Japanese architect Tadao Ando has reinterpreted this vernacular and the region’s famed waterside architecture for the new contemporary He Art Museum (HEM) in Shunde.The founder, He Jianfeng who owns industrial investment Infore Group, one of the region’s most successful businesses, hopes the museum’s striking architecture and Western works of art – by masters such as Pablo Picasso, Olafur Eliasson and Damien Hirst – together with a focus on southern China’s Lingnan culture, including a fine collection of Lingnan-style ink art and Cantonese opera, will spark serious interest in culture and the arts.

Naoshima New Museum of Art, Japan (2025)

Ando returns to the feted Japanese island in Spring 2025 with the opening of the Naoshima New Museum of Art. The project marks his tenth contribution to Benesse Art Site Naoshima, which is set to host a range of works and site specific commissions by artists such as Cai Guo-Qiang, Takashi Murakami, Heri Dono, Do Ho Suh, N. S. Harsha, Marta Atienza, and more.

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Lee Ufan Arles is a stunningly restored private mansion-turned-exhibition space situated in the heart of the Provençal medieval city. It's a part of France that is legendary for its relationship with photography and the arts, through the longstanding annual photography festival Rencontres Arles and more recently Maja Hoffman’s sprawling, Frank Gehry-designed LUMA Arles.

Designed by two friends, artist Lee Ufan and Japanese architect Tadao Ando, the new space embraces the classic proportions of its location – the Hôtel Vernon, constructed between the 16th and 18th centuries – while creating an ideal venue to show Ufan’s art, including a large temporary exhibition space. 'Space and site play an important role. Material matters because we just show action, not action for a certain purpose, but action itself, pure action,' the artist says.

Lee Ufan Arles: a new destination for art and architecture in the south of France

Ufan is perhaps the most well-known Korean artist working today, famous for his conceptual sculpture and painting which has an instantly recognisable aesthetic born out of a combination of ideas from Eastern and Western cultures.

The building's design has a lightness of touch, although some additional rooms were created on the ground floor to improve visitor flow. This level features both painting and sculpture, including site-specific works and large-scale paintings from throughout Ufan’s career.

The works explore the artist's development from being a founder member of the Mono-ha (The School of Things) avant-garde Korean art movement in the late 1960s to his status as a world-famous contemporary artist, harnessing elements of mathematics, minimalism and zen. The placement of each work in relation to the dynamics of a space is key to Ufan’s practice and in his own space, he was able to design, with Ando, an ideal environment.

'I think floors and corners in spaces are very important. And this constitutes minimum conditions to exhibit my work. Each time I exhibit, the relationship changes between my artwork and the space, the site. Even I, as an artist, sometimes hesitate where to place things,' says Ufan. 'There is no exactness. There are no rules. The space and object relationship creates a tension.'

In working with the existing space using classic terracotta hexagonal tiles, exposed beams and whitewashed walls, the personality of the building is preserved. At the same time, there is also space for Ando’s classic use of industrial concrete in a large installation at the entrance. This effectively highlights the art.

'Lee Ufan especially worked on the painting selection and the display order. He wanted [the paintings] to be hung in chronological order. He created tension by [having visitors pass] from small rooms to bigger rooms. He is also interested in investing in the walls or floors, as you can notice with the wall painting that can be appreciated, like a moment of rest, before [visitors discover] his latest series of large-scale paintings, Dialogue and Response,' says general coordinator at Lee Ufan Arles, Juliette Vignon.

One of the major concerns of Ufan’s practice is the relationship between objects and materials through space and aesthetics. He will place natural stone and iron in relation to one another to highlight their difference in appearance, but also to emphasise that one is made from the other. A large rock sits on a pan of broken glass, left at the moment of contact, and a room filled with the rippling reflection of an installation is built around a regular drip of water.

This concern with the natural world makes the collaborative Art & Environment prize awarded by Lee Ufan Arles and Maison Guerlain a logical fit. The inaugural winner, Djabril Boukhenaïssi, has just opened his exhibition ‘À ténèbres’ (To Darkness) on site. The show, which runs until 1 September 2024, highlights the loss of natural darkness in the face of light pollution, through painting and etching inspired by 18th-century German literature and the moth as written about by Virginia Woolf.

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‘Space of Light’ by Tadao Ando is the second meditation pavilion opening at Museum SAN in Wonju, South Korea. Launching today (18 July 2023), this is the newest addition to the Japanese architecture master’s contemplative series, embodying his signature style expressed by concrete, light and integration with nature. 

Intense sunlight cuts through the square concrete structure, as two narrow slits on the roof intersect and solemnly light up the four walls of the cold, dark void. Although not conceived as a piece of religious architecture, the space invites visitors to an almost sacred moment of contemplation and self-reflection.

Space of Light: a Tadao Ando meditation pavilion

At a glance, the pavilion might remind guests – at least those who follow Ando’s work – of his Church of Light in Osaka, Japan. The placement of the cross-shaped opening is the key difference between the two structures. The Church of Light has one at eye level on the main façade, and it is covered in glass. In the Space of Light, a similar opening is located in the ceiling and is open, with no glass to stop the elements from entering the space.  

'In the Space of Light, the light falls in directly from the sky, just like the Pantheon in Rome,' says Ando. 'I believe this has a significant impact. When you look at light, there’s a feeling that touches the heart.'

This pavilion was built to mark the tenth anniversary of Museum SAN, a cultural destination tucked away in the mountainous region of Gangwon Province. Ando, who also designed the overall campus, which opened in 2013, was commissioned by the museum director to build a one-of-a-kind museum that will attract visitors to make the journey (it’s a good two-hour drive from Seoul). 

Celebrating its fifth anniversary in 2018, the museum unveiled the first meditation pavilion by Ando the following year. It is a dome-shaped structure that swells up from the ground like a tomb. A single streak of light shines into the space from the entrance. 

'Light,' is the main focus here, says the architect of his newly revealed pavilion. 'People will be able to feel that they are directly encountering nature.' He adds: 'With Space of Light, I wanted to create a space where nature and humans become one.' 

Unobstructed light flooding into the building is something Ando is proud of. 'Light is much more beautiful without the glass,' he says. 'One day, I would like to get rid of the glass in the Church of Light.'

An exhibition exploring Ando’s oeuvre, titled ‘Tadao Ando – Youth,’ is being held inside the main museum building, also part of the anniversary celebrations. The show will run until the end of October 2023 – awarded a three-month extension as a result of the enthusiastic response by the 100,000 guests that visited since its opening in April. The exhibition showcases 250 pieces of Ando’s works spanning his long career. This is the first time the architect’s works have been showcased in the space that he designed.

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Merging nature, art and architecture, Valley Gallery, the latest build by Tadao Ando on Naoshima, is the Pritzker Prize-winning architect’s most conceptual design to date. It marks 30 years since his first building on the island, the Benesse House Museum, which was Naoshima’s first art museum, as well as a hotel. Nestled in the base of a deep valley, the new gallery is a modest structure with an angular steel roof and a trapezoidal floor plan informed by the landscape. Ando aimed ‘to create an independent architectural space while preserving as much of the existing topography and trees as possible’, in order to make the most of the site’s potential.

Covering a total floor area of 96 sq m, Valley Gallery consists of a white-walled room within an external concrete shell. Both are housed under an angular 12mm steel-plate roof reminiscent of origami folds, and accentuated by two corner openings at 30 degrees, framing the outside sky and revealing seasonal changes – wind, rain, sunshine or snow. The interior uses only natural illumination, with the angled skylights casting shadows on the concrete walls throughout the day, forming sharp silhouettes akin to a sundial. Ando says: ‘As a means of creating such an architectural space as a microcosm, I came up with the scheme of a space as simple and pure as a white canvas [with] natural light entering into it. A void in which everything superfluous has been erased, coloured by light that shifts with time and the seasons.’

His ninth building on the island, and part of the Benesse Art Site Naoshima, Valley Gallery is unlike any conventional art experience. Along the winding path that leads to the entrance, visitors pass a small lake with mirrored stainless steel spheres on its banks, part of Yayoi Kusama’s Narcissus Garden installation. Nearby is Tsuyoshi Ozawa’s Slag Buddha 88, which features 88 Buddha statuettes created using slag from illegally dumped industrial waste. Both pre-existing works, they have been on the island since 2006 and have recently been relocated and extended for the new gallery.

The uphill journey is intentionally elongated, allowing time for reflective pause in the surrounding nature, particularly in spring when azaleas and cherry trees are in bloom. ‘For a gallery to be a special place for art, the space on the approach to it is very important,’ adds Ando. ‘Like the entrance to a tea ceremony room, the slight change in the sequence of visitors’ steps leads their attention to the gallery.’

Ando’s architecture occupies the island’s most challenging and remote sites, connected by the theme of a ‘coexistence with nature’. It ranges from Chichu Art Museum, built into a mountaintop, to his own namesake museum, situated inside a 100-year-old timber house. With Valley Gallery, the architect intends to created a reflective, meditative atmosphere.

‘Like a Japanese shrine, we were aiming for an architecture with a certain spatiality that exists as a spiritual pillar for the people, even if on a modest scale,’ explains Ando. ‘By inserting stimulating artwork into this space, I hoped to create a microcosm, a small but infinitely deep space.’ The building exemplifies the trifecta of art, architecture and nature in harmony, making the journey to the island that much more profound.

INFORMATION

benesse-artsite.jp

tadao-ando.com

A version of this article appears in the May 2022 issue of Wallpaper*. Subscribe today!

The former HQ of gaming giant Nintendo is getting a new lease of life as a boutique Kyoto hotel – Marufukuro – following a top-to-toe makeover by Tokyo hospitality group Plan Do See, in collaboration with Japanese architecture master Tadao Ando.

For decades, the building had been an empty landmark on a quiet Kyoto street corner, between Kyoto’s Kamo and Takase rivers – its ornate stone façade, forest green signage and art deco grilles contrasting with the traditional cityscape surrounding it. Now, it is set to offer a new spin on the ancient city’s long-standing balancing act between past and future.

The hotel spans three structures dating back to 1933. These were once the HQ and warehouse for the Kyoto-born Nintendo (whose distribution company at the time, Marufuku, specialised in playing cards), plus the residence of Nintendo’s founders, the Yamauchi family.

The buildings are a time capsule of early Showa-era architecture, riffing between Japanese and Western influences. Plan Do See’s renovation weaves a contemporary edge into the unique interiors, which remain awash with sweeping masonry, geometric motifs, art deco fireplaces and jewel-toned textiles.

Meanwhile, Ando created a new annex in signature swathes of concrete, while advising on the renovation of the original structures.

‘We wanted to preserve the memories of the original 1933 headquarters and bring it back to life for the present day, passing it on to future generations,’ says the architect. ‘It’s a place to enjoy new experiences in an ancient city. I hope that people will sense the atmosphere of the original headquarters when they visit – and also feel the new layers of Kyoto’s history.’

The façade offers a bold departure from Kyoto’s more low-key and minimalist hotel aesthetics, as reflected in the strong lines and curves of its stonework. There are hints of its history in the vintage green signage and the iron grilles depicting original patterns from early Nintendo playing cards.

A total of 11 guestrooms and seven suites span the four buildings, each named after a playing card suit. Centre stage is the former head office, Spades, with its intricate ironwork entrance, pastel floor tiles and a large sculpture of an egret by paper artist Taki Tamada, fashioned from old wallpaper from the original building. Spades is home to two spacious guest rooms (picture William Morris wallpapers and original white circular lighting). Meanwhile, upstairs is the bar and library – a smooth mesh of modern curves, soft tones and warm metal accents, plus an outdoor terrace, by Tokyo-based Suppose Design Office (the only area of the hotel commissioned by a member of the original Yamauchi family).

Connected to this building is Ando’s new Diamonds annex, which features a more minimalist palette of white, concrete, jewel-hued curtains, and walls of windows in seven spacious guest rooms, including the Marufukuro Suite, which spans this building and Spades. Contemporary lighting accentuates the curved wood of the chairs, by Japanese manufacturer Conde House and crafted in Hokkaido’s Asahikawa region. 

In Hearts, the former family home, are five guest rooms fusing vintage Western and Japanese aesthetics, including, among them, tatami flooring, sliding paper screens and a bathtub in an indoor courtyard space.

The final building is Clubs, the former storage structure, whose four guest rooms are a visual feast of original and updated design details – from vivid red carpets, turquoise curtains and geometric wallpapers to large wooden wardrobes with modernist motifs (adapted from old doors) and monochrome tiled balconies with mountain views.

Clubs is also home to modern Japanese restaurant Carta, helmed by renowned chef Ai Hosokawa, with blue tiles and a clean-lined central square counter that seats 15.

Aoi Hasegawa, designer at Plan Do See, says of the hotel’s distinctive design: ‘It is a beautiful mix of Japanese and Western styles, unique to its era. We kept many characteristic details, such as stained glass windows, beams and fireplaces, and we also selected different materials – vintage and modern furniture and lighting – in an attempt to create harmony between the original décor and the new interior. The contrast with Ando’s architecture was more beautiful than we could have imagined.’

INFORMATION

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Marufukuro will feature in the June 2022 issue of Wallpaper*, on sale 12 May. Subscribe today.

Its façade ticks all the boxes of a traditional Kyoto machiya townhouse, from the low-rise symmetry of its dark timber to its curved roof tiles. Step inside The Shinmonzen, however, and the atmosphere veers into the future: a long corridor, sharply lined with a sweep of raw concrete on one side, and vertical wood slats on the other, flows deep into the unexpectedly modern building.

Heritage and contemporary creativity stand in playful contrast throughout this new hotel in Kyoto’s historic Gion district. Despite its external appearance, it was built from scratch, designed by none other than Japanese architecture master Tadao Ando, and dreamt up by hotelier Paddy McKillen as the far-flung little sister of Villa La Coste (W*214), the sleek temple to modern art and architecture in southern France.

Overlooking the serene Shirakawa River, The Shinmonzen blends hints of Kyoto aesthetics with its European DNA, courtesy of Ando’s architecture and interiors by Rémi Tessier, alongside, as in the French outpost, an epic collection of contemporary art. ‘I fell in love with Kyoto 20 years ago,’ explains McKillen – or Paddy-san, as everyone calls him in Kyoto. ‘It was really a love of Japan, the people, the culture, omotenashi (hospitality), and the arts, that made me want to open a hotel here. We always wanted something bijou in the middle of Gion that was in keeping with the tradition of the surrounding architecture. I was inspired by the idea of a ryokan, a traditional Japanese inn, and asked Mr Ando to design a contemporary version of this.’

For Ando, the starting point of the hotel, constructed on the site of a former parking lot, was balancing an exterior sensitive to its Kyoto surroundings with an interior evoking a sense of Europe. Gion is designated as a traditional and preserved district by the city of Kyoto, explains Ando. ‘So we were obliged to create a wooden façade and Japanese roof tiles known as kawara. Therefore we tried to design the outside in a traditional Japanese style, but a completely different new modern world can be found inside.’

A solitary black split noren curtain with a calligraphic white ‘S’ marks the entrance, leading into the long, contemporary interior corridor, inspired by a roji, the narrow walkway found between two machiya townhouses. ‘We designed it in a modern way with exposed concrete and natural light through the side grille,’ explains Ando.

Inside the hotel, displays of contemporary artworks, which will regularly change, instantly steal the show – from Louise Bourgeois’ Pink Days, a Damien Hirst spot painting and Yoon-Young Hur’s moon jars in the ground-floor lobby, to Mary McCartney’s Geisha photography, Kohei Nawa’s dynamic Direction, Annie Morris’ Canvas and Thread and a serene blue washi artwork by Makoto Ofune, in corridors and guest rooms.

The nine suites are spacious and contemporary, with either Western-style beds or low-rise futons on tatami, all with private balconies overlooking the river, planted with Irish moss and Provençal-style jasmine. Interior touches include sliding paper shoji screens and angular ceramic wall vases by Takayuki Watanabe, plus headboards and tables of naturally hewn sycamore by Longpré. Expanses of monolithic marble in shades of pink, green or beige line the bathrooms, alongside hinoki wood bathtubs and bento box-style amenity cases by Kyoto bamboo masters Kohchosai Kosuga.

Hints of Villa La Coste are found in subtly shared design details, such as the silver-plated door handles crafted in France, white Ploh bathrobes and Pedersoli’s 500-thread-count organic cotton linen (room keys are also engraved with an image of the late Erin, McKillen’s much-loved dog). ‘Each of the nine guest rooms has a completely different design and a unique character,’ says Ando. ‘It’s a good balance between West and East.’

The hotel officially opened in December 2021 after something of a false start, having opened for just one night in April 2020 (with inaugural guests including artists Hiroshi Sugimoto and Takashi Murakami) before closing due to the pandemic. It will also soon open a restaurant by chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten, designed by New York-based Stephanie Goto; a street-front patisserie; and a basement spa with a resident reiki master. As Ando says, ‘This hotel has come into the world in difficult and complicated circumstances. I hope that guests can find calm here and enjoy both a traditional and modern Kyoto experience.’

INFORMATION

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A version of this article appears in the January 2022 issue of Wallpaper* (W*273). Subscribe today!

The new museum for the Pinault Collection, designed by Tadao Ando and set in the heart of Paris in the reimagined Bourse de Commerce, is about to throw open its doors to the public. This is one of the country's most anticipated cultural projects of the year, created by the Japanese architect for businessman François Pinault and transforming the city's former stock exchange into a concrete-infused, minimalist mecca for art. 

Ando and his team worked with the original structure’s character, blending it with his signature smooth yet crisp concrete volumes and geometric forms. This only enhanced the historical building's magnificent period features, such as its central rotunda, dome and murals.

Further contributions enrich the new cultural institution's architectural and design experience. Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec developed the Bourse's furniture; NeM Architectes worked with Ando on the architecture; and chefs Michel and Sébastien Bras have overseen the design of their restaurant, the Halle aux Grains. The Bouroullecs also created the street furniture around the building, elegantly announcing its presence.

The most prominent intervention sits under the main dome. Ando slotted a cylindrical three-tiered structure into the building’s main rotunda. This will be used for gallery displays, complementing further exhibition space outside this central grand hall. An auditorium, a generous, bright foyer and a black-box theatre for video installations and experimental performances can be found in other parts of the redesigned building. 

This is not the first time Ando has collaborated with Pinault – the duo won Best Double Act in the 2021 Wallpaper* Design Awards, just a few months ago, for their 20-year-long professional relationship and string of fruitful joint projects. The Bourse's transformation follows similar projects for the Pinault Collection’s Venice locations, Palazzo Grassi and Punta della Dogana. 

‘I wanted a museum that would transcend fashion and be timeless,' Pinault told Wallpaper* of the Bourse de Commerce project. ‘Tadao Ando is an exceptional architect who seeks to trace a new path by combining Japan’s rich traditions with the evolution of modernism in the West, creating harmony between the individual and his environment. He knows how to subtly create a dialogue between shape and time, between a building and its era.'

The Bourse de Commerce – Pinault Collection launches officially on 22 May. The opening show, aptly titled ‘Ouverture', takes the visitor through the ‘opening of new windows, new perspectives', says Pinault Collection CEO Jean-Jacques Aillagon. The exhibition of curated pieces personally picked by Pinault, will be complemented by new work around the building, by artists such as Urs Fischer, Maurizio Cattelan and Philippe Parreno.

INFORMATION

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Due to open in 2021, the Bourse de Commerce in Paris is the latest home for François Pinault to show works from his phenomenal art collection. This is the third time the French businessman has chosen Japanese architect Tadao Ando to convert a historical building into a contemporary museum for his collection (following the Palazzo Grassi and the Punta della Dogana, both in Venice). We spoke with Pinault and Ando about this hotly-anticipated project and their 20-year relationship.

W*: In 2001, your competition for a [never built] museum on the Île Seguin attracted many prestigious architects. Why did you choose Tadao Ando?

FP: I wanted a museum that would transcend fashion and be timeless. Tadao Ando is an exceptional architect who seeks to trace a new path by combining Japan’s rich traditions with the evolution of modernism in the West, creating harmony between the individual and his environment. He knows how to subtly create a dialogue between shape and time, between a building and its era.

W*: Mr Ando, you have designed several museums for foreign clients. What has been so unique about working with François Pinault?

TA: He fights with all his strength and does not give up without realising his dreams. I’ve always been impressed by his fearless thinking ever since we first worked together. An architect cannot make a building alone. It is the client’s will and persistence that moves a project forward. Just as the Medici family served as benefactors of artists such as Michelangelo during the Renaissance, he has encouraged me through the work we endeavoured to create together.

W*: Why is Ando an ideal architect for keeping traces of history in a contemporary redesign?

FP: His architecture knows how to confront the past while expressing its own time. In all of the projects we have done together, he has carefully highlighted the historic layers of each place and, at the same time, created strong spaces that belong to our time and embrace the future.

W*: What aspects of his Japanese culture has he brought to the buildings in Venice and Paris, and where do both of your sensibilities meet?

FP: Ando brings qualities to all of his works that are the essence of Japanese culture and sensibility: a rejection of grandiloquence; a distrust of over-effusiveness; as well as rigour, radicality, less over more, silence over noise. He and I share the same minimalist sensibility. He believes that perfection is achieved by eliminating everything that is not essential. One must be able to abstract oneself in order to feel emotion. 

W*: Mr Ando, how did you first have the idea for the central concrete cylinder?

TA: When I first set foot in the Bourse de Commerce, I was overwhelmed by the light streaming in through the dome and magnificent fresco. For me, the world inside this dome felt like a single universe. Immediately, the image of two circles formulated in my mind, one inside the other, which could become a frame for the universe that is the Bourse de Commerce.

W*: How does working on an existing – and historical – building compare to creating a totally new building from the ground up?

TA: I consider it vital to deliver a building that has been loved throughout history to the next generation. In Punta della Dogana and in the Bourse de Commerce, I inserted a new functional space within a historic building. A gallery of concrete. Each of these concrete interventions was determined by the shape and layout of the existing building. A square for Punta della Dogana and a circle for the Bourse de Commerce. I attempted to formulate a space for humans to contemplate the future within a stimulating environment, where old and new co-exist side by side. As preparation, I thoroughly studied the construction materials and methods, and repeatedly participated in a dialogue with the engineers. My definition of ‘renovation’ in architecture is to establish an exquisite and delicate balance between new and old. This can connect the past, present and future together and breathe new life into a space.

W*: Mr Pinault, what is your personal experience of the renovated Bourse de Commerce, and how would you like visitors to experience it?

FP: I’d like visitors to take the same pleasure that I do in crossing this building from one end to the other, to be enveloped by the prodigious concrete cylinder that Tadao Ando has built in the central space, to climb the stairs that wrap around this cylinder and discover the building’s details in a way that was not possible before, to marvel at the criss-crossing perspectives, to be amused at seeing other people on the double-spiral staircase and knowing their paths won’t cross. I hope visitors are impressed by the quality of the exhibition spaces, intrigued by the relationship between inside and outside, seduced by the furniture designed by Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec. I hope that every visit will be an opportunity for discovery and wonder. 

W*: You have been working together for almost 20 years. Is it a purely professional relationship or have you become friends as well as collaborators?

TA: My decades-long collaboration with Mr Pinault has been a series of unexpected yet rewarding events. I first met him through Karl Lagerfeld more than 20 years ago. I worked with him for the first time when I won the competition for a contemporary art museum on Île Seguin. Unfortunately, this project’s construction came to a halt for various reasons, and the museum went unrealised. I proceeded to complete a total of three successful projects with him in Venice. Around 2009 and 2014, I fell seriously ill and required multiple operations. After my recovery, I returned to architecture with a new vitality and visited Mr Pinault to tell him I was doing fine. On the spur of the moment, he consulted me about a new project, the Bourse de Commerce, and I put my full heart and soul into it. In my career, this series of projects with Mr Pinault holds a special place in my heart. I feel our bond has now exceeded the world of architecture and business.

FP: It is no longer just a business relationship, it goes well beyond that. We have known each other for more than 20 years. He has accompanied me on all the cultural projects I hold dear. We are somewhat alike. We are almost the same age, and both self-taught. He speaks neither French nor English, and I don’t speak Japanese. There is always a translator, of course. But we understand one another quite well without the need for words. We speak with our eyes. What I like about him is the rigour of his work, his attention to detail, his refusal to compromise and his resilience. He has experienced some tough times, but he has never given up.

INFORMATION

boursedecommerce.fr

One of Paris' most hotly anticipated cultural projects, the redesign of the Bourse de Commerce by Tadao Ando, for businessman François Pinault and the Pinault Collection, has just announced its opening date – on 3 January 2021. The transformation's design was masterminded by the celebrated Japanese architect, who has a long-standing relationship with Pinault, having worked together on projects such as the Palazzo Grassi and the Punta della Dogana in Venice. 

The Bourse – Paris' former stock exchange - is a magnficent historical building full of striking period features such as a central rotunda, dome and murals. Ando and his team worked with the original structure's character, adding a layer of the iconic architect's signature concrete minimalism. 

Ando is an experienced hand at creating powerful, yet calming cultural spaces, such as his recent He Art Museum in China. At the Bourse he inserted a cylindrical three-tiered structure into the building's main rotunda, creating space for exhibition displays. New photography of the space has just been released on the run up to the official inauguration early next year. The gallery space is completemented by an auditorium, a generous, bright foyer and a black-box theatre for video installations and experimental performances.

‘I am delighted with the upcoming opening of the Bourse de Commerce,' says Pinault. ‘Not only will it add to the European landscape of institutions devoted to presenting contemporary art, but after the difficult year experienced by France and the world in 2020, it will contribute to the renaissance of the Parisian cultural sphere.'

The launch of this seminal cultural destination will be programmed, as expected, in full compliance to the health and safety guidelines at the time.

INFORMATION

boursedecommerce.fr

Southern China’s traditional distinctive round buildings reflect the ancient belief that the sky is round and divine and the earth is square. Now Pritzker prize-winning Japanese architect Tadao Ando has reinterpreted this vernacular and the region’s famed waterside architecture for the new contemporary He Art Museum (HEM) in Shunde.

The founder, He Jianfeng who owns industrial investment Infore Group, one of the region’s most successful businesses, hopes the museum’s striking architecture and Western works of art – by masters such as Pablo Picasso, Olafur Eliasson and Damien Hirst – together with a focus on southern China’s Lingnan culture, including a fine collection of Lingnan-style ink art and Cantonese opera, will spark serious interest in culture and the arts. 

The entrance to the 16,000 sq m spiral-shaped pavilion situated adjacent to Infore’s headquarters and plaza in the central business district, is by a path that crosses the pond encircling the museum. Inside, a monumental central skywell and floor to ceiling windows with aluminium alloy louvers flood the interiors with daylight. An imposing double-helix pair of staircases in Ando’s signature smooth silvery-grey concrete create a dramatic Guggenheimesque feel emphasized by the slightly cantilevered ascending four-storeys. There is a square ground floor gallery, bookstore and café, and circular exhibition spaces above. 

According to HEM Director Shao Shu (previously a curator at Shanghai’s Long Museum), the curvilinear interiors deliberately step away from the contemporary Western ‘white box' style gallery and embrace Chinese culture: ‘In the circular architectural form, it sets out a new form of art space, embedding the culture of the museum with more individuality. At HEM, the space has seamlessly integrated with the experience of art.'

The inaugural exhibition ‘From the Mundane World', by eminent art curator and critic Feng Boyi, perceptively highlights Shunde’s famed cuisine with a metaphorical canteen. However, the star of the show is a site-specific permanent stainless steel tree sculpture by American artist Roxy Paine, a piece titled Ballast from his Dendroids series. Its location in the Crescent Garden was cleverly planned in collaboration with Ando to link the unusual architecture and surrounding outdoors.

INFORMATION

hem.org

Among cultural destinations that bring together art, architecture and nature, Casa Wabi stands out for the fact that it’s founded and run by an artist. Buoyed not by inherited riches or a mining fortune, but by the grit and generosity of the Mexican painter and sculptor Bosco Sodi, it combines exceptional beauty with a refreshingly inclusive vision. 

The origins of Casa Wabi are by now well chronicled. Sodi became an admirer of Tadao Ando during a residency in Japan around 2006 and would send regular faxes asking to commission the architect, only to be turned down repeatedly. It took six years for the architect and the artist to finally meet, at the latter’s Brooklyn studio and then over lunch at a restaurant around the corner. Ando still didn’t commit to the project, but drew a big wall on a napkin that would become the central feature of his eventual building. Sodi recalls, ‘four months after that Hurricane Sandy happened, and my studio was totally destroyed. Someone sent Ando the photos, and he finally wrote me a letter saying he wanted to go ahead’.

By then, Sodi had secured a stretch of land, sandwiched between a beach and a mountain range, in Puerto Escondido on the Pacific coast of Mexico. It was available for the same amount of money that he just made on a show, again in Japan. ‘It was destiny,’ marvels the artist. Japan factors into the story in another way: the name Casa Wabi references the Japanese philosophy of wabi-sabi, which embraces imperfection and ephemerality.

The name befits the main building, which is made from exposed concrete, an Ando signature. It stands in stunning contrast to the landscape, while incorporating distinctive local elements such as a thatched roof in Oaxacan palapa palm. The aforementioned wall runs 312m along the site, ‘emphasising the horizontality of the sea and the terrain of the mountain’, explains Ando. Ando’s plan further includes an open studio for Sodi, without doors or windows so light and air could also pass through from all sides; an exhibition space; an observatory and meditation space; and six bungalows for artist residencies. Meanwhile, the Mexico City-based architect Alberto Kalach transformed the landscape with new plantings of indigenous species, such as red-flowering tabachin trees and coconut palms.

Subsequent additions to Casa Wabi – which Sodi calls the pavilions – have involved both leading international architects and emerging local practices. Each has been commissioned with the local community in mind, supporting artisans and offering educational opportunities to young Oaxacans. ‘I have done well in my career, so I feel an obligation to give back to my country, and to Puerto Escondido, one of the places I love the most,’ Sodi says. 

Thus, Álvaro Siza’s clay pavilion serves to host children’s workshops, Kalach’s chimney tower will be installed with a ceramic kiln, and Gloria Cabral and Solano Benítez’s newly completed composting pavilion will offer lessons on rejuvenating the local terrain. And it’s not just humans who benefit: Kengo Kuma has created a charred-wood chicken coop, while young Mexican architects Ambrosi Etchegaray designed a nursery for guayacan, an endangered local plant species.

Above: Alberto Kalach’s chimney tower, which has finished construction since the time of photography. It will house a ceramic kiln to fire pieces that have been created in the adjacent clay pavilion, by Álvaro Siza. Below: A view of Kengo Kuma’s chicken coop, made from charred wooden boards using a traditional method from the western part of Japan. ‘It gives a certain expression of serenity to a new construction, as if it had been there for over a century,’ explains the architect

Six years since its initial opening, Casa Wabi has welcomed all manner of visitors: local children who come for workshops and movie screenings, and to learn about architecture; artists- and designers-in-residence, who can spend their time as they wish, provided that they engage in a community project; even a composer every year, who works with the local band to develop symphonies. There’s now an open call for a bonsai master to develop a project for the guayacan pavilion. 

The international art programme is likewise going strong: the likes of Daniel Buren, Ugo Rondinone and Izumi Kato have done solo shows. At the moment Lawrence Weiner has taken over the exhibition space with three new, site-specific works. Permanent installations on the grounds include Sodi’s Los Atlantes, a land art piece made from 102,400 bricks, using local clay and ancestral burning methods; and from this year on, an ‘Underground Sculpture Park’ by the French conceptual artist Loris Gréaud. Gréaud has selected 20 of his works to be buried forever along the paths of the Casa Wabi gardens. The pieces are accessible only to the mind. Not until next February, once the burial spots are covered with vegetation, will benches be installed to indicate their location.

Casa Wabi has been the driving force for better architecture in the Puerto Escondido area: recent years have seen the completion of remarkable hotels and private homes, by the likes of Kalach, Ambrosi Etchegaray, and fellow Mexican talents Federico Rivera Rio, Alberto Calleja, S-AR and Aranza de Ariño. Concerns that the influx of wealth would create difficulties for longtime residents have certainly been on Sodi’s mind; one of his current projects is a small store for the community at the back of the Casa Wabi plot, selling groceries and daily necessities to locals at a fair price. 

The artist admits that the current pandemic has proven a stumbling block in his plans for Casa Wabi: ‘I get some funding from the local government, but for the most part I pay for the Casa Wabi foundation myself. So we’re having to do with less money and more creativity for now.’ An upcoming woodworking pavilion, which would involve Japanese carpenters demonstrating their joinery techniques to local artisans, has been put on hold. Casa Wabi is temporarily closed to visitors too, though local children will be invited back for workshops soon, and a new batch of artists-in-residence (four Mexicans, and two Americans who live in Mexico) are expected in early June.

Here, we speak with its founder Bosco Sodi ahead of his @wallpapermag Instagram takeover

Usually based in Brooklyn, Sodi has taken refuge at Casa Wabi for the past two months. It’s the longest amount of time he’s been in a place for the last 15 years. ‘I figured that it would be a good idea to come here and focus on improving the foundation. This pandemic is a terrible thing, but we as humans have the obligation to make the most of any tragedy and create a better world’, he says. His reflections on the pandemic may well encapsulate the mission of Casa Wabi: ‘We need to be more connected with the people around us, with all human beings, and with nature.’ 

The foundation's central complex is surrounded by six freestanding residences. 

INFORMATION

casawabi.org

ADDRESS

Casa Wabi Foundation
Salina Cruz
Santiago Pinotepa Nacional Km 113
Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca
Mexico

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The architecture boom that has gripped New York City for the past several years has left many indelible marks on the city’s skyline. Buildings by almost every big-name architect jostle with each other for breathing room on Manhattan’s western waterfront, and designing a towering New York landmark is now de rigueur for a Pritzker Prize-winning architect. Yet for his first project in the Big Apple, Tadao Ando opted to create something on a significantly smaller scale.

The Japanese architect’s seven-storey, seven-residence condominium, 152 Elizabeth Street, stands on a busy thoroughfare in Manhattan’s Nolita district. Instigated by the development firm Sumaida + Khurana and located on the site of a former garage, the concrete-and-glass structure took more than two years to construct. The newly completed building’s succinct design seamlessly brings together several Ando signatures.

There are the grandiose bodies of poured-in-place concrete, elegantly detailed with circular formwork ties. Wide glass panels wrap the building on all sides and levels, producing an ethereal counterpoint to the stately concrete. These are brought together by beams of burnished metal, which form the structural skeleton of the building. A final exterior flourish, a green wall on the southern façade, brings a dash of nature to the built-up urban landscape.

‘I wanted to use traditional building materials of this century – concrete, glass and metal,’ explains Ando. ‘I tried to make something unique with commonly found materials, a building that did not overpower the characteristics of surrounding buildings. I imagined a quiet place, where you could retreat from the hectic pace of urban life and be greeted by the sound of a water wall and a calmness once you enter the building.

For Ando, this meant incorporating echoes of earlier projects. At the entrance, a fog installation, a collaboration with Gabellini Sheppard Associates, adds an ephemeral mist – a reference to the public work, Silence, he created with Blair Associates at Carlos Place in London. Inside, a water wall flanks one side of the lobby, while a light slot, similar to the glass lengths Ando created for the Church of Light in Osaka, allows natural light to peek through. ‘The lobby was really thought of as a cocoon,’ says Sumaida + Khurana’s co-founder Amit Khurana, ‘a spatial experience.’

This same sensitivity continues into the apartments above, with interiors designed by Michael Gabellini of Gabellini Sheppard Associates. From the sharply cut-out reveals that outline the architectural features, imbuing a feeling of suspension, to the Dinesen oak floorboards and monolithic kitchen islands, there is no lack of showstoppers here. As a backdrop to all this, each of the expansive windows showcases a view of the city around it.

‘In traditional Japanese architecture, shakkei [incorporating the background landscape in a design] is often used as a way of framing nature and creating a permeable boundary between interior and exterior,’ says Ando. ‘New York seemed to be the perfect location for an urban shakkei.’

Witnessing Ando’s deft hand at this intimate scale is what makes the project memorable. For Khurana and his business partner Saif Sumaida, who are committed to working with their favourite architects, especially if they have yet to build in New York, it is all part of creating a new paradigm in real-estate development. The firm is currently developing Álvaro Siza’s first tower in New York on West 56th Street with the real-estate firm Leny.

At 152 Elizabeth Street, says Sumaida, ‘we had a hand in the original vision and the actual construction, so our role was very fulfilling’. It was the firm’s deep understanding of architecture that ultimately won Ando over. ‘I told him we wanted to build something that is not about marketing,’ Khurana recalls. ‘We wanted it to be about pure design.’

‘I was intrigued because the project site and its scale were just right, and rather opposite of the extreme skyscraper building rush taking place in New York,’ says Ando, adding that the project also reflects a key design philosophy: ‘I believe understanding and designing a house or an apartment is the core of architectural design. Without privacy, there is no public.’ §

As originally featured in the January 2019 issue of Wallpaper* (W*238)

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the Tadao Ando website and the 152 Elizabeth Street website

Working wonders out of light, concrete and water, Pritzker Prize winner Tadao Ando has long been celebrated for his lyrical minimalism, evidenced in scores of projects around the world, like his Modern Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas and the Church of the Light in his native Japan. Now, the Osaka-based architect has just arrived in Milan for the debut of a new exhibition of his work at Armani/Silos, the eponymous fashion brand’s cavernous gallery and event space.

Giorgio Armani himself was integral in bringing the show to Italy following the successful run (of a slightly different version) at Paris’s Centre Pompidou; the fashion maven has long had a penchant for Ando’s work, having commissioned him to create the nearby Armani Theatre almost two decades ago. For his part, Ando sees a natural affinity between his own aesthetic philosophy and that of the famed fashion designer. ‘We both appreciate quality in materials and simplicity in expression,' he says.

The exhibition is a testament to that same sensibility. Entitled ‘The Challenge', the show unfolds in a series of darkened rooms and uses exquisite models, videos and shop drawings to track Ando’s career from its unlikely beginnings through to its most recent triumphs. ‘I was never trained as an architect,' Ando points out, and ‘The Challenge' documents the process of self-education that shaped the designer early on, mapping his global peregrinations in search of great buildings.

The detailed mockups of his most high-profile projects to date - such as the restoration of the Punta della Dogana facility in Venice, including a whole chunk of the Venetian landscape - bring the designs to life in their fullest context; one ongoing project in Paris, the transformation of the historic Bourse into a new museum, is rendered in richly textured wood, with a cutaway showing exactly how Ando is placing an elegant ring of concrete directly under the great nineteenth century dome.   

At the same time, the cool atmosphere that hangs around the Armani compound seems an appropriate complement to the work. As Ando notes, he and his sometime client share a special bond. ‘I can see into Giorgio’s heart,’ he says, ‘and he can see into mine.’ 

INFORMATION

’The Challenge’ is on view until 28 July 2019. For more information, visit the Armani/Silos website

ADDRESS

via Bergognone 40
Milan
Italy

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Chicago’s architectural legacy has always been an integral facet of the city’s culture – one that has experienced fresh interest with the occurrence of the Chicago Architecture Bienniale since 2015. The opening of Wrightwood 659 this week, a private institution dedicated to architecture and socially engaged art, builds upon things even further with its newly renovated structure, designed by the Pritzker Prize-winning architect Tadao Ando.

Located in the city’s Lincoln Park neighbourhood, the new art space occupies a 1920s apartment building that has been dramatically transformed by Ando into an elegant hybrid of past and present. Although the classical red brick facade and its original adornments have been preserved, inside the building, bold volumes of concrete, thin glass banisters and large industrial windows are juxtaposed with exposed brick walls that boast gestural cut-outs to let natural light in. A long glass corridor on the top floor provides views of the city skyline, while a new rooftop structure rising above the original building at a tilt allows for a new terrace and additional gallery space to be installed. 

Fred Eychaner, president of the Alphawood Foundation Chicago, and architectural historian Dan Whittaker are the founders of the non-commercial gallery space. The formation of Wrightwood 659, in fact, evolved very much out of Alphawood’s exhibition programming – shows will oscillate between socially geared art and deeper explorations in architecture and design.

‘We are delighted to be opening a new space for art in Chicago, one conducive to quiet reflection and thoughtful engagement, while also provoking activism on behalf of a more just society', says Lisa Cavanaugh, Wrightwood 659’s director.

Although it is a non-collecting entity and will not have its own holdings, Wrightwood 659 will present two exhibitions each year, kicking off with ‘Ando and Le Corbusier: Masters of Architecture’ for its inauguration. The show includes over 100 drawings, models and photographs of Le Corbusier, on loan from the Fondation Le Corbusier in Paris and the Art Institute of Chicago, alongside 160 small models of the icon’s architecture works made by students of Ando. 

Curated by Whittaker and Eric Mumford, professor of architecture at Washington University in St. Louis, it explores the influence of Le Corbusier on Ando. The gallery’s second floor has been filled with works ranging from his Purist period in the 1920s to lithographs, paintings, archival photographs and models of key works, like the Villa Savoye in Paris and the Assembly in Chandigarh, India.

Its third and fourth floors showcase Ando’s creations and includes focuses on the island of Naoshima, several museum projects and hotel structures. A large concrete scale-model of Ando’s Church of the Light in Ibaraki, Japan sits on the mezzanine level, beneath the building’s skylights.

It is worth noting that walk-in visits to the space will not be entertained, in a bid to preserve the sanctity of the gallery. Admission is strictly by online reservation only.

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.

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.

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.

INFORMATION

‘Tadao Ando, the Challenge’ is on view from 10 October to 31 December. For more information, visitor the Centre Pompidou website and the Tadao Ando website

Set in a new development centred on an art foundation by Tadao Ando, the Bulgari rises above the Liangma River in Beijing’s leafy Embassy District and is conceived as an urban resort for this city of 20 million. In keeping with tradition, it was designed by multidisciplinary international design studio, Antonio Citterio Patricia Viel, who selected or designed each element for consistency. Uncompromisingly contemporary from without – squint and it’s almost an elongated reimagining of the Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana – inside, there are echoes of the flagship Milan hotel.

Based on a contrasting palette and lavish use of travertine, onyx, granite and bronze, the design does include the odd local nod, notably in the landscaping by Enzo Enea, which is inspired by China’s Millennial tradition but overall, reads as an expression of all things Italian. So there are furnishings from Flexform and Flos and food from Niko Romito, the triple-starred owner of Abruzzo’s Reale, who will also be overseeing menus at the forthcoming properties in Dubai and Shanghai. With 119 rooms and suites, including a two-floor spa with 11 treatment rooms and indoor pool, Beijing’s latest luxury retreat brings a taste of northern Italy to northern China. 

INFORMATION

Website

ADDRESS

Building 2
Courtyard No 8 
Xinyuan South Road

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The Soho House group has long since dispensed with the services of external designers – Tom Dixon, Martin Brudnizki and Ilse Crawford among them – establishing an in-house design studio in New York (though Tadao Ando is working with the group on a new Tokyo branch of the members' club empire). Headed up by Vicky Charles, the studio – kept busy by the group’s accelerating ambition, outfitting new houses in Chicago, Istanbul and LA, and working on openings in Amsterdam, Barcelona and Mumbai – has developed a house style heavy on the vintage and reclaimed. This is based around entirely bespoke furniture and fittings, ensuring that every new club feels distinctive and locally-sourced.

It was while working on the fit-out and furnishing of Soho House Chicago, opened in 2014, that Charles decided that all that snuffling and sourcing could serve a bigger purpose and sold the idea to Soho House founder Nick Jones.

Soft-launched to the houses’ 56,000 members earlier this year and now to the general public (33,000 of whom are currently on the waiting list to become members) Soho Home, the group's new e-commerce venture, lets you take bits of the houses away with you. Or at least have exactly alike bits of tableware, textiles, accessories, art prints, soft furnishing and furniture – including vintage pieces – delivered to your door.

‘We started Soho Home because members always ask us where they can buy things in the houses,’ says Jones. ‘So we created a range to bring the house home, from the Chesterfield sofa you sit on at Soho House Chicago to the Barwell Crystal you drink your Negroni from at 76 Dean Street.'

Sofas and armchairs are made by George Smith in Cramlington, Northumberland, pottery comes from Burleigh in Staffordshire and glassware is hand-blown at the Rogaška glassworks in Slovenia. And visitors to the site can view the collection by function or house of origin. Chicago, New York, Babington House, Soho Farmhouse and High Road House comprise the current list, but more will be added.

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the Soho Home website

The annual Wallpaper* Architects Directory was conceived in 2000 as the ultimate little black book of new architectural talent, in an effort to both celebrate and map out the world’s best young practices, year-by-year, spanning countries and continents; and what a journey has it been.

We’ve so far featured over 450 practices from all continents (OK, maybe not Antarctica – yet) and photographed over 100 of them in the most amazing architectural sites across the world, from Tokyo’s Shibuya Station by Tadao Ando, to Diller Scofidio and Renfro’s Lincoln Centre project, Richard Rogers’ Heathrow T5, the Neues Gallery in Berlin by David Chipperfield and the Shard in London, by Renzo Piano.

Not that the Architects Directory was the first time we supported budding talent. Leading names such as David Adjaye, Seth Stein, UNStudio and MVRD, all made an early, pre-2000 appearance in the pages of Wallpaper*.

Nurturing emerging practices and seeing them grow into global creative brands has been an exciting story in itself – and there’s been a lot of that. Our ever-growing roster includes now-internationally acclaimed names, such as Allied Works, Brian McKay-Lyons, Claesson Koivisto Rune, Niall McLaughlin, Sean Godsell and Grafton Architects.

For more on the Wallpaper* Architects Directory in our 20th anniversary October 2016 issue (w* 211)

dRMM 
Featured in 2001
Alex de Rijke, Philip Marsh and Sadie Morgan founded dRMM in London in 1995 and have been prolific, working with equal ease on projects of all scales, from large housing projects to smaller ones, such as artist Richard Wood’s home and studio, WoodBlock House (pictured here). Their innovative and socially relevant approach is renowned.

Atelier Oi 
Featured in 2004
Founded in 1990 in Switzerland by Aurel Aebi, Armand Louis and Patrick Reymond, Atelier Oï is a multidisciplinary firm that blurs the boundaries of design; its body of work features a diverse bounty of products, set design, architecture and interiors, such as stores for Rimowa and Pringle of Scotland.

Sean Godsell
Featured in 2001
Australian architect Sean Godsell is revered for projects like the St Andrews Beach house (pictured here) and RMIT Design Hub. He applies his minimalist, refined aesthetic to residential and commercial structures alike, keeping in touch with his country’s climatic characteristics and using a modern material palette - inspired by its locality - to perfection

Deborah Berke 
Featured in 2002
Apart from leading her namesake New York-based firm, Deborah Berke has also just kicked off her time as the Dean of the Yale School of Architecture. Her prestigious practice’s work includes the Bard College Conservatory of Museum and interiors for 432 Park Avenue in New York

Claesson Koivisto Rune
Featured in 2000
Swedish firm Claesson Koivisto Rune founded by Mårten Claesson, Eero Koivisto and Ola Rune in 1995, started off as an architecture firm, but evolved into a successful multidisciplinary uber-practice, experimenting with furniture, textiles, and even confectionery. Their wide-reaching skill set soon propelled them to international design stardom.

MAD Architects 
Featured in 2007
MAD Architects, established in China in 2004 by Ma Yansong, started small but quickly transformed into a global brand, becoming one of the country’s leading firms. MAD is behind some of the world’s most striking structures, such as the Harbin Opera House (pictured here). 

Brian MacKay Lyons 
Featured in 2002
Brian MacKay-Lyons – currently the co-head of MacKay-Lyons Sweetapple Architects together with Talbot Sweetapple – is based in Halifax, Canada. The practice works on an array of cultural, commercial and, most notably, residential projects, such as the Sliding House and the recently completed Enough House on MacKay Lyons’ own famous farm and education project, Shobac

Grafton Architects
Featured in 2000
Grafton Architects, founded by directors Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara in 1972 are now globally acknowledged for their refined, contemporary style. The firm has a number of exhibition participations and education projects under their belt, such as the modern and minimalist Luigi Bocconi University building in Milan. 

Allied Works
Featured in 2002
Allied Works, the 40-person practice led by Brad Cloepfil, has offices in Portland, Oregon and New York City. They first graced our pages in 2002 but the firm quickly grew since, working on a roster of impressive projects. Key completions include the Sun Valley Residence (pictured here) and the Museum of Arts and Design in New York

Tuckey Design
Featured in 2006
A context-sensitive approach sits at the heart of all Jonathan Tuckey projects. Over the years, the designer has perfected the art of transforming historic buildings into chic, contemporary spaces. With offices in London and Andermatt, Switzerland, the firm is renowned for its seamless weaving of old and new. 

David Adjaye
Featured in 1997
With offices in London, New York and Accra, David Adjaye’s firm has acquired international prestige through a diverse range of projects. Works such as the Aishti Foundation in Beirut (pictured here) and the Smithsonian Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington – about to open its doors this month – are a case in point of Adjaye’s skilful architecture.

UNStudio
Featured in 1999
Amsterdam-based UNStudio’s early work includes architecture classics such as Mobius House and the Erasmus Bridge (pictured here). Not that directors Ben Van Berkell and Caroline Bos rested on their laurels after that. The firm is now working internationally and has recently expanded with three additional offices in China. 

MVRDV
Featured in 1999
MVRDV, founded in 1993 in the Netherlands by Winy Maas, Jacob van Rijs and Nathalie de Vries, made a splash with early work such as the WOZOCO housing complex. They since developed into a global super-practice, applying their unique approach to offerings such as their impressive Rotterdam Market Hall, located in Rotterdam (pictured here). 

Seth Stein
Featured in 1998
Award-winning architect Seth Stein is a master of minimalism, combining a pared down approach with contemporary flair and luxurious materials. While best known for one-off houses in stunning rural settings or modern urban boltholes, his recently completed equestrian centre near Melbourne highlights the firm’s far-reaching skills. 

A luxury condominium in the Big Apple is usually de rigueur for a Pritzker prize-winning architect, but in the case of Tadao Ando, the Japanese architect is only just now popping his cherry. 152 Elizabeth Street, a beautifully formed, seven-storey, seven-residence building situated in the heart of Nolita that is scheduled to complete at the end of 2016, is Ando’s first residential building in Manhattan. Developed by Sumaida + Khurana, a local firm that is making it a point to work with renowned architects that have yet to build in New York City, 152 Elizabeth Street is poised to set a new standard in luxury living.

'I had the right team in the office for this project at the time of the offer so I took upon this venture,' Ando says simply of why a New York City project had not happened sooner. 'The project site and its scale were just right and rather opposite of the extreme skyscraper building rush taking place in New York, so I was intrigued.'

For such a debut, the acclaimed architect has put together a building that bears all of his signatures. 152 Elizabeth Street seamlessly blends a poured-in-place concrete structure with a burnished metal framework. Generous glass panels add buoyancy to the building, while a 55-foot high and 99-foot wide living green wall brings a modern air of serenity and calm.

'[The concept was to create a] glass box interlocked on an exposed concrete base creating the stability and transition from the dynamic urban fabric into a calm private residence. The refined contrast of the material use emphasises the simple architectural language,' explains Ando.

'I use concrete because to me, it is one of the best materials to capture the space I envision. I want to create a space, which no one has created before, with a very common material like concrete, which anyone is familiar with and has access to. Concrete can be made anywhere on earth with its local resources and is the material of 21st century, along with metal and glass.'

Beyond the façade, each of the building’s single-floor residences will be conceived as individual homes. Michael Gabellini of Gabellini Sheppard Associates embraced Ando’s idea of referencing the four primary elements of light, water, sound and air, when designing its interiors and its sales gallery (pictured above). He says, 'Our approach to this project was very much about collaboration and the complementary process between our practice and Tadao Ando’s. We were inspired by the idea of elemental living, and how we could embrace environmental elements through thoughtful design.'

Ando expresses his feelings about having a presence in New York just as poetically. 'Manhattan is a very special city. I feel like the city itself is the largest man-made architecture of 20th and 21st century, and in such a city I wanted to create something that does not specify the time.

'Whether it’s an interior or a ground-up project, for me architecture is about creating a space, harmony with the surrounding nature and environment, and an experience. I try my best to create a space [with these] necessary qualities in all of my projects around the world.'

The Pulitzer Arts Foundation in St Louis is Japanese master Tadao Ando's very first freestanding public commission in the United States, completed in 2001. Since August 2014, the original building has been undergoing a makeover, in consultation with Ando, to accommodate the foundation's growing needs.

Responding to an increasing demand for space, the new project includes a significant expansion of the foundation's gallery area. Arranged within the building's lower level, two major new display spaces, which previously hosted offices and storage, will now be part of the institution's exhibitions and activities program, aimed to engage the wider public and local community. These new spaces increase the foundation's program capacity by a striking near-fifty percent.

At the same time, the organisation (previously known as The Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts) relaunches under a new name 'to emphasise [its] institutional vision'.

This is the building's first major alteration since its completion in the early noughties. And Ando's skilful redesign is focusing on more than just increasing floor space; a new, additional staircase will support movement through the building and help with visitor flow, perfecting both circulation and visitor experience within the new and old parts.

ADDRESS

3716 Washington Blvd
St Louis
MO 63108
United States

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Following last year's grand opening of the art, architecture and design school at the University of Monterrey (The Gate of Creation), Mexico has been gearing up for the launch of its second high profile public building designed by Tadao Ando; the home for the Casa Wabi Foundation.

Set up by artist Bosco Sodi and directed by Patricia Martin (former director and curator of La Colección Jumex), the art foundation is situated on the outskirts of Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca, about 500 miles southwest of Mexico City. Sodi 'always admired Ando's architecture' and approached the Japanese Pritzker Prize-winning architect for the design of his foundation's new headquarters. There is one more Japanese connection - Casa Wabi is named after the Japanese ideal of wabi-sabi, which revolves around the beauty of life's imperfections.

Ando obliged, creating a central complex around which sit six freestanding residences. The composition also includes two studios, an exhibition space and several multipurpose spaces. A 67-acre botanical garden set to become the foundation's outdoor contemporary art collection completes the scheme.

The architecture combines modern and traditional materials and techniques; the structure is concrete, following Ando's signature style, but also uses the region's traditional 'palapa' construction. This is an open-sided pavilion featuring a thatched roof made of dried palm leaves that is common in that area of Mexico.

Casa Wabi opens this weekend with a new site-specific installation by French artist Daniel Buren and aims to run four main programs: an interdisciplinary artist residency, social and education programs and a garden and film program that will bring together the artists and the local community. The foundation is open by appointment.

ADDRESS

G Protasio Tagle 41, Piso 1
San Miguel Chapultepec
Miguel Hidalgo, 11850
Mexico

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