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COMMUNICATION ANDPARTNERSHIPS DIVISION
MEDIA PACK
TADAO ANDO, THE CHALLENGE10 OCTOBER – 31 DECEMBER 2018
TADAO ANDO
TADAO ANDO, THE CHALLENGE
10 OCTOBER – 31 DECEMBER 2018GALERIE 3, LEVEL 1
CONTENTS
1. PRESS RELEASE page 3
2. INTERVIEW WITH TADAO ANDO – BIOGRAPHY page 5
3. EXHBITION MAP AND LAYOUT page 9
4. PUBLICATION page 12
5. CATALOGUE TEXTS page 13
6. MEDIA IMAGES page 20
7. PRACTICAL INFORMATION page 28
September 2018
Partnerships Division75191 Paris Cedex 04
directorBenoit Parayretelephone00 33 (0)1 44 78 12 [email protected]
Press OfficerAnne-Marie Pereiratelephone00 33 (0)1 44 78 40 [email protected]
www.centrepompidou.fr
communicationsand partnerships department75191 Paris cedex 04
directorBenoît Parayretelephone00 33 (0)1 44 78 12 [email protected]
press attachéAnne-Marie Pereiratelephone00 33 (0)1 44 78 40 [email protected]
www.centrepompidou.fr
Tadao Ando
photo : Kazumi Kurigami
#ExpoTadaoAndo
July 2018
PRESS RELEASETADAO ANDO, THE CHALLENGE 10 OCTOBER - 31 DECEMBER 2018 GALERIE 3, LEVEL 1
The Centre Pompidou is devoting a major retrospective exhibition to the Japanese architect Tadao Ando, a key figure in contemporary architecture. The exhibition explores his creative principles, such as use of smooth concrete, the pre-eminence of simple geometric volumes and the integration of natural components such as light and water into his spatial designs, as well as the importance he gives to the intensity of the physical experience engendered by his architecture.
Fascinated by architecture, Tadao Ando (b. 1941 in Osaka, Japan) abandoned professional boxing
and set out on an initiatory tour of the world to learn about his passion. In 1969, he created his
own agency in Osaka, where he produced sober, clean-lined designs that went against the 1970s
trend for technological architecture.
Tadao Ando bases his designs on an exploration of the various aspects typical of his work,
particularly architecture’s very reason for existing: «Given that it is used by people, it has close links
with the body… Architecture should provide a place for mankind’s sense of joy. Otherwise our bodies
are not attracted to it.»
He also explores the question of «how to make architecture» – «By dint of thinking about it, I ended
up with the relationship between dimension, height, surface and three-dimensional volumes» – and
how to integrate light into his designs: «What I felt when observing Romanesque churches… was that
hope resided in light alone. I created the Church of Light, wondering whether the symbol of the
community wasn’t light. Architecture also involves creating places for the community. I produce my
architecture by asking myself how I can create things that remain forever imprinted on people’s souls.»
Tadao Ando has received numerous prizes and international awards, including the prestigious US
Pritzker Prize for Architecture in 1995. Over 300 projects have been listed all over the world
throughout his fifty-year career.
This exhibition is staged jointly by the Centre Pompidou, the Tadao Ando Exhibition Committee and the Japan Foundation as part of «Japonismes 2018»
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This retrospective looks back at the different periods in his career as an architect and sheds light on his
decisive achievements: the Azuma House in Sumiyoshi (1976), Naoshima (1988 to the present day),
the Church of Light (1989) and La Bourse de Commerce in Paris (autumn 2019) are some of the major
projects presented in a staging designed by Tadao Ando, produced in collaboration with his agency.
The exhibition will present around 50 major projects with 180 drawings, 70 original models and numerous
slide shows, all divided into four main themes: the basic form of space; the urban challenge; the origins
of landscape; the dialogue with history.
The central section of the exhibition will feature a major installation: «Naoshima», a work representative
of the architect’s dialogue with the natural landscapes of Naoshima Island. His rich and varied achieve-
ments are rounded off by graphite drawings, travel notebooks and photographs taken by Tadao Ando
himself, which have never been shown to a European public before.
To go with the exhibition, a 256-page catalogue illustrates the architect’s work through 70 of his finest
projects. This monograph contains three portfolios presenting the architect’s black and white photographs,
pencil drawings and travel notebooks: a source of inspiration for his first designs, which are on show in
the exhibition and reproduced for the first time.
This collective book is edited by the exhibition’s curator, Frédéric Migayrou.
Co-published by Flammarion-Editions du Centre Pompidou-Bourse de Commerce/Collection Pinault - Paris.
Talk by Tadao AndoMonday 8 October at 3.00 p.m.
Cinéma 1, level 1
Admission within the limit of seats available
Exhibition curated by Frédéric Migayrou, deputy director of the Musée National d’Art Moderne - Centre de
Création Industrielle and Yuki Yoshikawa, associate curator, with the Tadao Ando Architect & Associates agency.
Tadao Ando has received numerous prizes and international awards, including the prestigious US
Pritzker Prize for Architecture in 1995. Over 300 projects have been listed all over the world
throughout his fifty-year career.
5
CONVERSATION BETWEEN FRÉDÉRIC MIGAYROU AND TADAO ANDO
Excerpts from the catalogue
Frédéric Migayrou: You founded your agency in 1969 and designed your first house in 1971,
the «Guerrilla House», which acted as a manifesto. You later bought this house back; it became your agency,
and you have been constantly rebuilding it – six times I believe, up till now – because it is still your agency.
In 1970, Osaka hosted its World Expo which had a worldwide impact, but you remained aloof from this
exhibition, the Metabolist movement and the image of technological and economic expansion. What was
your position at this period – did the idea of the Guerrilla House reflect a political attitude, or assert a kind
of manifesto?
Tadao Ando: The Guerrilla House was not so much a political message as a challenge. Up till then, at least in
Japan, only public buildings like libraries, gymnasiums and museums were considered architecture. People
would say «housing? That’s not architecture.» Likewise with size: people did not consider it possible to create
architecture with small units. So I thought that possibility and hope needed to be created for the numerous
architects, and for me as well. First of all I wanted to meet the challenge of producing perfectly convenient
accommodation with 70 m², and I felt this accommodation should raise questions. The same with commercial
architecture. I thought that if we tried to open out a new world, that would be an interesting challenge.
Architecture could not be restricted to public buildings alone.
F.M: In your architecture, abstraction is a method, but it is not a de-realisation or reduction – it is a
generic principle. To this end, you have defined a grammar with the notions of «pillar» and «wall», and
the geometric systems you introduce – the simple forms of circles, rectangles and squares – are
multiplied in subdivisions that create intermediary spaces. Starting from this simple grammar, you invert
the constructive logic of modernism to liberate space for the body. The space needs to be experienced
and no longer be abstract, within the meaning of modernism.
TA: Rather than a method, isn’t geometry the final result of a long process of reflection? If I chase after
geometry, I get to Greece. Then, if I continue to chase after it, I am forced to disregard it. In a world where we
really have to think in order to achieve practical architecture, I come back to the starting point of the circle, the
square and the triangle. But this point of departure is not enough to create architecture. How can you make
architecture out of them? By dint of thinking about it, I ended up at the link between dimension, height,
surface and three-dimensional volumes. How can material be introduced into this search for the link between
volume, height and surface? By pursuing the material, the form and the geometry. It’s quite difficult. Young
people don’t see it, but this is the most important point…
Take the Azuma house, for example: in a totally abstract world, a little world of 3 by 15 meters, light enters the
inner courtyard, which represents a third of the space. The height, typical of Japan, is 2.25 metres, i.e. seven
shaku and five sun. It is this height that is important: if the ceiling were higher or lower, the room would
become narrower. I advance by observing the relationship between this percep tion of the dimensions and the
material, i.e. the raw concrete, on both sides. I have always used concrete. People all over the world use this
material invented in France in the late 19th century. Everyone uses it, but I want to create a space that no
other person could possibly create. A space that forces you to ask yourself how it would be possible to create
such a space with this same concrete. I wanted to create this kind of space with a material that anyone can get
hold of, solely with the aid of geometry, dimensions and materials.
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F.M: Your projects increasingly involve collective programmes like churches, museums and foundations:
a large number of spiritual venues where people can share this experience of space and architecture,
right through to projects occupying huge territories that open up new relationships between nature
and architecture. Does this spiritual aspect of your architecture make it possible to reconsider the idea
of community, and unite individuals on a social or even an international level, beyond specific cultures,
as we might say?
T.A: What I felt in observing Romanesque churches, like Thoronet Abbey or Notre-Dame in Sénanque, is that
hope resided in light alone. When I designed the Church of Light, my idea was that the light entering through
the cross of light should be perceived differently by each person. If there are thirty people, the light needs to
enter so that it is felt in thirty different ways. And at the same time, there should be the feeling that the thirty
people are one person. I created this place wondering if the symbol of community wasn’t light. Architecture
also involves creating places for the community. In that sense, our work carries considerable responsibility.
And many people put their hope in architecture. That does not only concern the Church of Light. For example,
on a hillside in Kobe, I have built a collective housing complex consisting of a network of five-metre units. Each
unit measures five metres, but the space inside is different each time. Likewise – speaking of light – with the
Koshino house, I designed it so that the light entering from different places makes us want to scoop it up in
our hands. And I need to conceive the light of each piece of architecture in a different way. That’s how I started
to produce my designs, and the same feelings inspire me today. I produce my architecture by asking myself
how I can conceive things that remain forever imprinted on people’s souls.
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BIOGRAPHIE
1941 Born in Osaka, Japan
1962-69 Self-educated in architecture
Traveled in U.S.A., Europe and Africa
1969 Established Tadao Ando Architect & Associates
Works and Projects1976 Row House, Sumiyoshi, Osaka, Japan
1983 Rokko Housing I, II (1993), III (1999) Kobe, Hyogo, Japan
1984 Time’s I, Kyoto, Japan
1989 Church of the Light, Ibaraki, Osaka, Japan
1992 Benesse House Museum, Benesse House Oval (1995), Naoshima, Kagawa, Japan
1994 Chikatsu-Asuka Historical Museum, Kanan, Osaka, Japan
1995 Meditation Space, UNESCO, Paris, France
2000 Awaji-Yumebutai (Awaji Island Project), Awaji, Hyogo, Japan
FABRICA (Benetton Communications Research Center), Treviso, Italy
2001 Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts, St. Louis, U.S.A.
ARMANI/TEATRO, Milan, Italy
Sayamaike Historical Museum, Osaka-Sayama, Osaka, Japan
2002 Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art, Kobe, Hyogo, Japan
The International Library of Children’s Literature, Ueno, Tokyo, Japan
Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, U.S.A.
2003 4 x 4 House, Kobe, Hyogo, Japan
2004 Chichu Art Museum, Naoshima, Kagawa, Japan
Langen Foundation, Neuss, Germany
2006 Omotesando Hills (Omotesando Regeneration Project), Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan
2007 21_21 DESIGN SIGHT, Akasaka, Tokyo, Japan
2008 Interfaculty Initiative in Information Studies Fukutake Hall, The University of Tokyo, Japan
Tokyu Toyoko-Line Shibuya Station, Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan
2009 Punta della Dogana Contemporary Art Centre, Venice, Italy
2010 Stone Sculpture Museum, Bad Münster am Stein, Germany
2013 ANDO MUSEUM, Naoshima, Kagawa, Japan
2014 Clark Center / Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, U.S.A.
Shanghai Poly Theater, Shanghai, China
Selected Exhibitions1978 “A New Wave of Japanese Architecture,” U.S.A. (Traveling Exhibition)
1979 Magyar Epitömuvészek Szövetségének, Budapest, Hungary
1982 Institut Français d’Architecture, Paris, France
1991 The Museum of Modern Art, New York, U.S.A.
1993 Centre Pompidou, Paris, France
The Royal Institute of British Architects, London, U.K.
1994 Expo MOPT, Madrid, Spain (Ministerio de Obras Públicas, Transportes y Medio Ambiente)
Fundació « la Caixa », Centre Cultural, Barcelona, Spain
1994-95 The Basilica Palladiana, Vicenza, Italy
1998 National Museum of Contemporary Art, Korea, Seoul
Royal Academy of Arts, Londres, Royaume-Uni
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2001 Saint Louis Art Museum, St. Louis, U.S.A.
2002-03 Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, U.S.A.
2003 Tokyo Station Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
2005-06 Shanghai Art Museum, Shanghai, China
2016 15th Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy
2017 The National Art Center, Tokyo, Japan
Awards1985 The 5th Alvar Aalto Medal, The Finnish Association of Architects, Finland
1989 Gold Medal of Architecture, Académie d’Architecture (French Academy of Architecture), France
1995 The Pritzker Architecture Prize, U.S.A.
1996 The 8th Premium Imperiale
1997 Royal Gold Medal, Royal Institute of British Architects, U.K.
2002 Gold Medal of the American Institute of Architects, U.S.A.
The Kyoto Prizes, Japan
2005 Gold Medal of Union Internationale des Architectes
Chevalier de l’Ordre National de la Légion d’Honneur, France
2010 The Order of Culture, Japan
2012 The 2012 Richard Neutra Award for Professional Excellence, U.S.A.
2013 Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, France
2015 Grande Ufficiale dell’Ordine della Stella d’Italia, Italy
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2. EXHIBITION LAYOUT
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2. NAVIGATING THE EXHIBITION
The exhibition is arranged in 5 sections so as to provide a comprehensive overview of Tadao
Ando’s work. A selection of original documents – 180 drawings, 70 templates and
numerous slideshows – allows visitors to appreciate how the Japanese architect’s form of
architectural and artistic expression evolved.
THE PRIMITIVE SHAPE OF SPACE
For Tadao Ando, surfaces are not spaces: they need to disappear in order to make room for the spatial experience. Walls of smooth concrete, taken right back to their simplest form, come to life in the light and provoke a feeling of emptiness in the visitor. The existing space leads to a physical and palpable experience of architecture that is felt by the body and spirit (shintai). From his early houses (Azuma House at Sumiyoshi, 1976) to his 1990s projects, the emphasis on geometric shapes and the constant presence of the elements, light and water, as fundamental architectural materials all suggest an adherence to the concept of “ma”, which can mean either gap, solidity or boundary – or all three – and a desire to highlight the basic human condition.
CHALLENGING THE URBAN
In the face of the increasing industrialisation of construction and the exponential spread of cities, Tadao Ando wanted to restore the public nature of architecture, in the sense that it allows each of us to experience how we occupy space and time. The guerilla concept (Urban Guerilla House, 1973), embodied by the Azuma House in Sumiyoshi, is about resisting urbanisation by closing off private space. In the 1990s, alongside his many individual dwellings projects, he received multiple commissions for large-scale projects, in which he developed a new relationship of continuity with the city by creating passages, extensions of the street, without detracting from the autonomy of the buildings.For Tadao Ando, cities are a challenge that architecture can overcome by giving back meaning to places and sites, and by redefining notions of public space and spaces for the public.
NAOSHIMA
Since 1987, Tadao Ando has been working on the island of Naoshima, located in Okayama prefecture in southern Japan, on a series of projects that have completely remodelled the topography of the site to create a new environment in which the ecology of the landscape is restored. A museum of modern art, partially buried in a hill in the southern part of the island, and a rocky promontory offering a spectacular panorama over the whole site were the basis of all the works, which, rather than being created according to a plan, were devised as a dialogue between art, architecture and the land, and so are the fruits of an exchange and careful consideration of the traditional culture of the site. Tadao Ando’s projects follow a geometry directly related to the topography of the island and its contours. The architecture here is often subterranean and creates a spiritual trail, a pathway that evokes a feeling that art and nature have become intertwined. Naoshima, hitherto a small, unknown island, now welcomes visitors from all over the world and is currently awaiting the completion of two new museums by the architect.
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ORIGINS OF THE LANDSCAPE
With the spread of urbanisation, the notion of land and the reconstruction of the landscape features heavily in many of Tadao Ando’s projects. It is manifested in a singular consideration of the land, punctuated by spaces and underground public areasarranged in tiers, thus offering many different views and giving a greater sense of the context and individuality of each site. Light-years away from ordinary landscape architecture, Tadao Ando’s work involves a careful study of all of the natural, historical and social qualities of sites in order to bring to life the memory of the communities that created them and to give them a contemporary identity by bringing new dimensions to them. The most striking example of the genesis of these new landscapes is the series of projects developed over a period of thirty years, like Awaji-Yumebutai (1999) and Museum SAN )2012), involving the complete remodelling of the land on a grand scale.
DIALOGUES WITH HISTORY
Tadao Ando’s overriding attachment to context has frequently drawn him to work on historic sites and buildings, and thus to build in the “already built”. Fascinated by the many outstanding monuments in the history of architecture, he has developed a unique approach to renovating old structures that entails respecting the memory and spirit of the sites. His work in this domain, while preserving and emphasising the evocative power of these architectural works, also manages to create completely new contemporary spaces. From this dialogue with moments within the layers of history his architecture produces a force that weaves new connecting threads between the past, present and future.This approach is apparent in several of his creations, including the Bourse de Commerce currently being constructed in Paris.
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4. PUBLISHING
EXHIBITION CATALOGUEProduced under the direction of Frédéric Migayrou
Format: 24 cm x 28 cm, soft cover, 256 pages, around 400 illustrations Retail price: €45
A Centre Pompidou Flammarion Editions-Bourse de Commerce/Collection Pinault co-edition, Paris
Contents Prefaces
Text by Frédéric Migayrou
Photographs of Tadao Ando
Interview with Tadao Ando by Frédéric Migayrou
Tadao Ando’s Atelier (Guerrilla III, Tomishima House, Atelier in Oyodo I and II)
THE PRIMITIVE SHAPE OF SPACE
Types of dwellings
Drawings (in lead pencil) by Tadao Ando
“Urban Guerrilla”, 1972
“Thinking in MA”, 1993 The generic void
Spiritual spaces
CHALLENGING THE URBAN
Masao Furuyama, “Research on the wall, the theory of the wall”, 1994 Akira Asada,
“The Stoic Architecture of Tadao Ando”, 2017
Riichi Miyake, “Living on Earth”, 2008
NAOSHIMA
Text by Tadao Ano, “Architecture without end”
ORIGINS OF THE LANDSCAPE
Other projects
DIALOGUES WITH HISTORY
“Ando by Ando”, 2007
Tadao Ando’s travel tales
Project chronology
Bibliography
Tadao Ando biography
TADAOANDO le
défi
sous la direction de Frédéric Migayrou
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Foreword by the President (extract from the catalogue)
While major one-person architectural exhibitions are a cornerstone of the Centre Pompidou’s
programming, offering the public the opportunity to see the fruits of an entire career, certain bodies
of work have – in the form of iconic creations that have made an impact – a universal value that raises
them to an incomparable historic level. Like the exhibition dedicated to Frank Gehry in 2015, the current
one on Tadao Ando is truly an event, as his architecture, which was previously exhibited at the Centre
Pompidou more than twenty five years ago, is now recognised worldwide.
Since his historic trip to Europe and France, to which the Japanese architect had travelled in the hope of
meeting Le Corbusier – who had, unfortunately, passed away just a few days previously – Tando Ando has
forged a close link with the great architect through his use of concrete – concrete that can transform
itself into a precious and noble material – and also through the humanistic dimension to his work, in
which he takes a physical as much as a spiritual approach to constructed spaces. From 1976’s Azuma
House in Sumiyoshi, whose blind façade turned towards the city preserved the interiority of the interior
spaces, to his work on large-scale, collective housing projects like the terraced buildings of the Rokko
residences (1978 to 1999), or the formulation of projects to reconfigure sites and landscapes – for
example, the Chikatsu-Asuka Historical Museum (1994), Awaji-Yumebutai (1999), Museum SAN (2012)
and the Buddha on the Hill (2015) – Tadao Ando, by constantly using a geometry of simple and
immediately obvious shapes in his work, has been able to create an incomparable richness in his forms
of expression, all while maintaining a dialogue with the elements – light, water and a natural
environment enhanced by his intervention.
Art has always played a central role in Tadao Ando’s work, principally as a result of his close ties to the
artists belonging to the Gutai movement, but also in the extreme concision of his architectural language,
which resonated with the minimalist aesthetic. But his close relationship to works of art is illustrated
most obviously by the many museums he has designed – among them, the Hyogo Prefectural Museum
of Art (2001), the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth (2002) and the Langen Foundation (2004), to name
but a few – which go beyond a simple dialogue with architecture, becoming, instead, receptacles for
permanent installations. Tadao Ando also made his mark on the island of Naoshima (where he has been
working on projects since 1988), an entire territory devoted to an aesthetic and spiritual experience
designed in a way that redefines the links between nature and architecture. In France, the abandoned
competition to establish the Pinault Foundation on Seguin island (2001) ultimately led to the creation
of the Punta della Dogana in Venice (2009) and then the Bourse de Commerce project in Paris (currently
under construction), confirming the esteem in which the Japanese architect is held by the commissioner
of these projects, François Pinault.
Presented as part of the Japonismes 2018 show, this exhibition – ably curated by Frédéric Migayrou with
the assistance of Yuki Yoshikawa and in close collaboration with Tadao Ando himself – looks back over
the whole of his career via five themed sections. The exhibition, which he has entitled “the challenge”,
is a humanistic message for architecture that seeks to be universal and shared by all, a message
illustrated by the recreation on level 1 of the façade of the Church of the Light, an iconic symbol of his
work as a whole, which the architect has rebuilt in front of the big windows
of the Centre Pompidou’s Galerie 3.
Serge Lasvignes
President of the Centre Pompidou
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ANDO BY ANDO, 2007 (extract from the catalogue)
I cannot pretend to be an objective judge of my own work. Architecture to me is the pursuit of individual
solutions under specific circumstances. I design houses in particular with certain individuals in mind,
and in any discussion of my design process I must include the role played by my own emotions.
Leaving it to others to analyze or classify my method, I have chosen instead to use works that have been
turning points in my career to retrace the route I have taken since I began my architectural activities.
Although I began with the intention of dealing with matters chronologically, the result has turned out
to be a fragmentary text joined together primarily in my memory. However, I believe I have succeeded
in honestly expressing what I have held fast to in the course of my life.
Self-Education as a Point of Departure. The Anxiety of Solitude“Are you really self-taught?” “How did you teach yourself?” Those are the questions I am asked most
often, whether in Japan or overseas.
I did in fact begin to practice without a formal education in architecture. In contemporary society,
schooling is regarded as important; it is conventional wisdom to begin architecture by entering the
architecture department of some university. Inevitably, people are intrigued by my unconventional,
self-taught background.
However, I did not deliberately set out to be an autodidact. In my late teens, as my interest in architecture
gradually grew, I too thought about studying the subject at a university. I had to abandon the idea because
of financial circumstances in my family and my own academic shortcomings. That is how my self-education
began. Lacking any knowledge or connections, I learned while working in the real world. At the start,
I did not know what to expect and was tormented by anxiety.
I was faced with a fundamental question: What exactly should I study? To get an idea of what I ought
to learn, I purchased all the textbooks used at a university with an architecture department and devised
a program to read them all in one year. Like a man driven, I went through the books and finished them
all on schedule. In truth, I understood at best only half of what I had read, but the year was not wasted,
as I had a vague grasp of the system of architectural studies.
Around the time I abandoned the idea of entering a university, I began to accept any interesting part-time
work that came my way in not just architecture but interior design and product design: I also took
correspondence courses in those fields. Through such practical experience, I gradually became versed
in the act of design. Nevertheless, no matter how many books I read, I still had no answer to the
question, “What is architecture?”
In the end, I came to the conclusion that the only way to grasp the essence of architecture was through
repeated empirical study, that is, by actually visiting buildings I admired, experiencing their spaces
and inscribing those experiences in my memory. First, I traveled around Japan to everything from old
folkhouses and traditional buildings to works of modern architecture by Kenzo Tange and others. In 1965,
a year after the general public in Japan was first permitted to travel overseas, I went to Europe. That
journey was the beginning of my self-education in a true sense.
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Undertaking a Grand Tour in My Own WayOn my first grand tour, I went by ship from Yokohama to Nahodka, took the Siberian Railway to Moscow,
and from there traveled around Scandinavia, Switzerland, Italy, Greece, France and Spain. From
Marseille, I made my way back to Yokohama via Africa, India, Thailand, and the Philippines. The entire
trip took approximately seven months.
I call it a grand tour, but compared with, for example, the journeys that opened the eyes of Le Corbusier
and Louis Kahn to the source of Western architecture, it was absent of any dramatic episodes. Traveling
in unfamiliar lands, I experienced continual stress. Not only that, the world of architecture proved
recondite and did not readily yield its secrets. Far from discovering the answeught, I found myself more
puzzled by architecture the more I traveled.
I did not immediately find the answer, even at the Villa Savoye to which I headed immediately after
arriving in Paris. Visiting this masterpiece of modernism was one of the most important objectives of my
journey. That was because, at a time when I was struggling alone to understand architecture, Corbusier’s
collected works, found in a used bookstore, had taught me the delights and the possibilities
of contemporary architecture.
However, I did not discover as much as I had hoped on my first visit to the house. At the time,
the building, not yet protected as a cultural asset, was in a state of near ruin; I saw, not the spaces,
but the ravages of time. In addition, I was not yet sufficiently educated in the historical significance of the
Dom-ino structure or the question of the Five Points of a New Architecture. Nevertheless, I could not
leave, still ignorant. I repeatedly went back to the building, swearing I would do so until I understood it.
I believe it was around my third visit that I was able to see the ruin as architecture. I could finally see past
the exfoliated exterior and sense the intention of the architect to defy nature and erect a building.
The fact that it was in ruin seemed to me to reveal all the more the power of architecture. Moved by this
discovery and asking myself what did I really want to create, I returned to Paris.
I experienced this same inability to immediately absorb the full significance of a building and move
on to the next stop on my itinerary upon visiting classical works in Greece and Rome. For example,
there was the Parthenon in Greece.
When I began my self-education, architecture to me meant Western architecture. Naturally, Greek
architecture, its point of origin, was at the top of the list of must-see buildings I had compiled before my
departure. I arrived in Athens and excitedly ascended the Acropolis, but once I stood in front of the
Parthenon, I could not understand it. Determined to grasp its essence and learn what the shadowy space
of its colonnade was trying to communicate, I resigned myself to a stay as prolonged as that made
necessary by the Villa Savoye. Early in the morning several days later I climbed the hill alone and stood
staring at the temple, where a number of tourists were wandering. At last, a sort of answer occurred
to me: It is mathematics that rules this place. Mathematics is the power of human reason that is hidden
in architecture. It has been the essence of Western architecture from ancient times to the modern works
of Corbusier and is what distinguishes Western architecture from that of my native Japan. Of course,
it was only after I had returned to Japan several months later that I was able to articulate those thoughts
fully.
If I had had a bit more prior knowledge, the journey would have been much smoother. I took a roundabout
route, and from lack of proper preparation was unable to find a number of buildings on my list.
Nevertheless, I do not believe it was a mistake to confront those buildings directly, armed only with my
sensibility. It took time, and anxiety often threatened to overwhelm me. However, to that extent, I was
able to appreciate and assimilate the encounters I had and the discoveries I made during the journey.
The memories of architecture I have from that journey in my youth have definitely been the driving force
in my subsequent architectural activities.
16
Distance from ModernismFor many, the word “self-education” suggests a free way of life, one not bound by the social system.
However, choosing freedom means choosing solitude, and few know how painful that solitude can be.
The most difficult aspect of self-education for me was the absence of any classmates with whom I could
study and ascertain what I had learned. I was always plagued by anxiety because of my solitude; I did not
know what sort of path I had taken or how far I had come. I am not completely free of anxiety even now
that I have considerable more experience. Of course, it is thanks to that anxiety thatam able to continue
to work with undiminished intensity.
There is a limit to what I could have learned in four years at a university, but the company of others with
similar objectives would have freed me from the anxiety of solitude. I believe that having such company
is the true value of a university education.
In an effort to avoid complacency, I have been an avid collector of information since my youth. Using all
the money I earned from part-time work, I would acquire foreign magazines that intrigued me, even
though I could not read them.
After a search that tested my limited powers to gather information, I chose Sigfried Giedion’s Time,
Space and Architecture as a textbook so that I might learn to see the true nature of the times.
Postmodernism was already starting to emerge at that time, and there were those who objected to the
self-righteous view of history expressed in the erstwhile bible of modernism. For me, however, it proved
a good introduction. I carried it with me on my first visit to the West and read it repeatedly as I traveled.
During my architectural pilgrimage, I thought about the ideals and the significance of modernism, which
was, according to Giedion, characterized in both its details and its entirety by a consistent logic.
On visiting a number of masterpieces of modern architecture, I was struck more by their differences than
by what they had in common. Though Alvar Aalto of Finland and Corbusier are both modernists, their
spaces are very different in character. Even among works by Corbusier, the houses of his white period
and Ronchamp Chapel from his last years are entirely different in the character of their spaces. What
exactly is this modernism which encompasses such diversity? Has that question been answered by
contemporary architecture? The journey only raised more questions about architecture.
After undertaking several more architectural pilgrimages, mainly to the United States and Europe,
I opened my own office in 1969 and began to practice architecture without having found the answers
to my questions.
At the time, many architects of my generation in Japan were attempting in their separate ways to go
beyond modernism. Not having fully resolved the question of modernism in my mind, I looked askance
at their activities. I made it my own architectural objective to go back to square one and reexamine
the potential of modernism. The difference in the distance we put between ourselves and modernism
determined, I believe, the different nature of our subsequent architectural activities.
Work Is Something to Be Created: Starting at the Grass RootsThe architects’ complaint that work is scarce is a familiar one. The problem is particularly severe
in contemporary Japan, where urban growth has leveled off and social demand for new construction
has itself decreased. Not a few aspirants quit architecture even before they have started.
I too had no work for quite some time after I opened my office at the age of 29. However, having strayed
off the beaten path, I had no expectations. I immediately began attempts to make my own way. First,
I took advantage of my spare time to develop an imaginary project for a nearby empty lot. This I presented
to the owner of the lot, a complete stranger, as a project proposal. Not surprisingly, the proposal was
rejected. However, in pursuing such activities I gradually began to receive commissions to design small
houses. I literally started at the grass roots.
Looking back, I see how reckless my activities were, but given the nature of the architectural profession,
they provided a quite effective training.
It is my belief that you cannot sit back and wait, if you want to design architecture; work is something
you have to create yourself. It is because I have lived by that belief that I ended up doing a four-phased
project in the Rokko district of Kobe and the Awaji Yumebutai project, which was originally supposed
17
to be a golf course but eventually became a project with environmental regeneration as its theme.
Architects ought to be more aggressive in making their onions known to society. Architecture can play a
much bigger role in society if architects took the initiative and suggested, each in accordance with his or
her ideals, what should be created. I believe a change in awareness among architects themselves is
necessary if the next generation is to make any headway.
Urban Guerrilla HouseA friend from my student days gave me my first job after I opened my office. The conditions were
restrictive: a corner site in a district of rowhouses; a total floor area of 100 square meters; and a total
construction cost of three million yen. However, I dedicated myself to the project and attempted to create
my sort of building.
Less than a year later, a house built like a vertical cave, surrounded on four sides by concrete walls,
was completed. The main opening was just a skylight at the top of the void space. Closed rather than
open, dark instead of light, this house had nothing of the image of “modern living” then in fashion.
A year after the house was completed, I had an opportunity to show it to Makoto Ueda of the magazine
Toshi Jutaku and was fortunate enough to have it published. The title of my first published text was
“Urban Guerrilla House”. I was under the influence then of Trotsky and Che Guevara; the text was about
how I was a guerrilla confronting the powerful city and creating “strongholds of resistance” for people
struggling to live in the city.
The 1970s was a time when, in reaction to modernist doctrinairism, the postmodern movement which
sought to go beyond modernism began to sweep across the world. The essay I had written and the
aggressive image projected by the published photographs were interpreted by people as an expression
of an architect’s rejection of the existing social order and established architectural concepts, and I found
myself included among those in disagreement with modernism.
In truth, I had not the slightest interest in the so-called postmodern movement. In fact I loathed the
tendency, so common in the movement, to verbalize things. I called myself a guerrilla, not out of a desire
to oppose the architectural ideology called modernism. What I wanted to challenge was the city of reality,
a city full of contradictions that could not be governed by the transparent logic of modernism. What I
wanted to create was absurd spaces full of raw vitality. Looking back, I think I approached my work then
more as sculpture than as architecture. The Rowhouse in Sumiyoshi of 1976 was an extension of that
urban guerrilla house.
(...)
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Architecture without end (extract from the catalogue)
Tadao Ando
I have been making architecture for a long time. Each and every building had a different story behind it.
An example of one of the earliest of my buildings is the Row House in Sumiyoshi, which I consider to be
the starting point for my architectural work. Standing quietly in a typical old-town neighborhood
in Osaka, the concrete townhouse measuring 3.3 meters in width and 14.1 meters in depth was the
building through which I had discovered the direction for my work, which is characterized by its restricted
use of materials, its geometric rigor, and the bold relationships it establishes between inside and outside
spaces.
I happened to be making another house at the same time as the Row House in Sumiyoshi in an area
of Kobe that is also called Sumiyoshi. Located in a peaceful residential neighborhood, the spacious plot
of this latter Sumiyoshi contained a time-worn granite stone hedge and magnificent camphor trees.
I made the house here with a sloped roof and brick walls and positioned it so as to avoid the existing
trees.
The house in Sumiyoshi of Osaka stands as an abstract expression, while the house in Sumiyoshi of Kobe
takes on somewhat of a vernacular character. The differences between the two buildings stem from the
differences in the circumstances of the places upon which they were built and the differences in the
traditional and historical contexts of each of their sites.
Every building has its own unique set of conditions and problems that it must address. A work of
architecture can therefore only be a unique solution that can exist in no place other than where it is built.
Even as I have continued to erect each unique work of architecture one by one, however, my fundamental
motive, or the vision that I have held for each building, has remained unchanged: to transcend
‘boundaries’ and to nurture ‘places’.
Of course, regardless of how daring or innovative a space one may create, the issue of ‘place’ is not so
easy a matter that new value can be generated by a single building. A ‘place’ is where culture is fostered
by existing equally within the minds of all people as a mental landscape into which their memories are
inscribed—and as such, a great amount of time and sustained effort is necessary to initiate something
upon it.
Yet, architects can usually only demonstrate their professional function for the first time when they are
commissioned by a client. In reality, it is difficult for one to be able to engage a place while assuming
such a passive stance.
I have continued to work against this challenge by maintaining a will to stay actively involved in the
process beyond the completion of a building. Whether it has been through the numerous projects to add
extensions to houses I have designed; the participatory environmental programs that I have initiated
to enrich the surrounding landscapes around museum projects that I have planned; or projects such as
the Rokko Housing, in which I managed to realize the three phases of the development under a common
theme but with different clients by drawing up plans for buildings for the neighboring properties of my
own accord and proposing them to their landowners, it can be said that the identity of my architecture
has always been shaped through my attempt to address the theme of ‘place’.
At times, however, one will have the great fortune of coming across a project in which the program itself
is aimed toward shaping a place rather than a single building. This came to me as the project that has
now spanned over a period of 25 years on the island of Naoshima.
To date, I have made numerous buildings on Naoshima, including the Naoshima International
Campground (1988), Benesse House Museum (1992), Benesse House Oval (1995), Minamidera (1999),
Chichu Art Museum (2004), Benesse House Park & Beach (2006), Lee Ufan Museum (2010),
and the Ando Museum (2013).
19
What I had consistently thought about was the theme of creating ‘places of possibility’ where art, nature,
and people are brought together in a direct matter and can mutually stimulate one other. Architecture
exists here solely as a device that sets the human imagination free and initiates dialogues with art and
nature. I have materialized my idea for making ‘invisible architecture’ by deploying a cadence of
geometrically defined spaces along the natural topography.
As the buildings progressively multiplied like living organisms through the phased construction process,
the surrounding natural environment also gradually recovered. The buildings have slowly melted into the
restored greenery to the point that they are now completely buried within it. This has resulted in shaping
a landscape unique to Naoshima in which architecture and nature exist as one.
The place-making project on Naoshima did not follow the conventional method of constructing buildings
in a predefined fashion according to a master plan. Rather, it expanded little by little over a long period
of time while conversations were maintained with the natural topography, history, climate, and the people
of various statures involved in the project. This process of creating a place by engaging in sustained
dialogues has revived the small island of 3,000 inhabitants into an international mecca for art.
It can be said without doubt that the critical turning point for the Naoshima Project came with the start
of the Art House Project in Honmura, the island’s oldest town located roughly three kilometers from the
museum facilities.
Century old houses have been repaired and infused with works of contemporary art through this project.
This new experimental method of preserving and restoring old houses has done more than simply
provide interesting art experiences; it has returned energy and hope to the town that had been losing its
vitality as a result of depopulation and population ageing.
What first began with conversations between the elderly and the young in front of the revived houses then
led to interactions between tourists and local residents—and soon the residents found themselves
renewed with a sense of confidence and pride for the place where they lived. It was from here in
Honmura that the miracle was set in motion through which the Naoshima Project grew beyond the
framework of the museum facilities, entered the local community, and reshaped the town with modern
art. This town is also where I built the Ando Museum, a museum focused on my architectural work,
as another response to the concept of the Art House Project.
In 2010, Mr. Fukutake initiated the Setouchi Triennale, an international art festival held on Naoshima and
several other islands in the Seto Inland Sea. The 2nd Setouchi Triennale was held in 2013, and it appears
that the festival has successfully taken root in the serene Setouchi seascape.
Mr. Fukutake has told me that he is currently planning yet another project on the island of Naoshima,
which is the central venue of the art festival. I, too, am awaiting the opportunity to realize some ideas of
my own that I have secretly been incubating. The project has not yet ended.
* published in Tadao Ando Naoshima, 2014 (translation Akemi Ono)
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7. MEDIA IMAGES
The works included in this media pack are protected by copyright.
Legal notices
• If reproducing any of these works, the following copyright information must be included: name of the
artist, title and date of the work, followed by the name of the photographer.
• Conditions of use
The works featured in this press pack must only be used to accompany an article on the retrospective
entitled “TADAO ANDO, THE CHALLENGE”, and published during its run at the Centre Pompidou
from 10 October to 31 December 2018.
Conditions that apply to websites with the status of online media outlets: file size is limited to 400 x 400
pixels and resolution must not exceed 72 dpi.
FOR TELEVISED REPORTS:
• These images are free to use on condition that the following mandatory copyright information
is included in the credits or overlaid on the screen: name of the artist, title and date of the work, followed
by the name of the photographer.
TADAO ANDO PORTRAITS
PORTRAITS TADAO ANDO
Portrait Tadao Ando © Photo : Nobuyoshi Araki
Portrait Tadao Ando © Photo : Kazumi Kurigami
Maison Koshino, agrandissement, 1984Koshino House Addition, 1984photo © Tadao Ando
Maison Koshino, 1981Koshino House, 1981photo © Tadao Ando
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Espace de méditation, UNESCO, 1995Meditation Space, UNESCO, 1995 © Photo :Tadao Ando
Festival, 1984 © Photo : Tadao Ando
Musée d’art de Chichu, 2004Chichu Art Museum, 2004© Photo : Tadao Ando
Musée d’art de Chichu, 2004 Chichu Art Museum, 2004© Photo :Tadao Ando
TADAO ANDO’S PHOTOGRAPHIES
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Maquette de la Maison Azuma à Sumiyoshi, 1976Model of Row House, Sumiyoshi - Azuma House© Centre Pompidou, Mnam/CciPhoto : Georges Meguerditchian/Dist. RMN-GP
Maison Azuma à Sumiyoshi, 1976Row House, Sumiyoshi-Azuma House, 1976 © Photo : Shinkenchiku-sha
THE PRIMITIVE SHAPE OF SPACE
Maison Koshino, 1981/1984Koshino House, 1981/1984© Photo : Shinkenchiku-sha
Maison Koshino, 1981/1984Koshino House, 1981/1984© Photo : Shinkenchiku-sha
Résidence Rokko I, II, III, 1983 /1993 /1999Rokko Housing I, II, III, 1983 /1993 /1999© Photo : Mitsuo Matsouoka
Résidence Rokko II, 1993Rokko Housing II, 1993© Photo : Mitsuo Matsouoka
23
Maquette du projet Shibuya (premier projet, non réalisé), 1985 Model of Shibuya Project (proposal), 1985© Photo : Tomio Ohashi
Maquette de la Maison 4 x 4, 2003Model of 4 x 4 House, 2003© Photo : Tadao Ando Architect & Associates
Dessin de l’Église de la lumière, 1989Drawing of Chruch of the Light, 1989© Photo :Tadao Ando Architect & Associates
Église de la lumière, 1989Church of the Light, 1989 © Photo : Mitsuo Matsuoka
Église sur l’eau, 1988 Church on the Water, 1988 © Photo : Yoshio Shiratori
Maquette de la Résidence Rokko I et II, 1983/1993Model of Rokko Housing I / II,1983/1993© Centre Pompidou, Mnam/CciPhoto : Georges Meguerditchian/Dist. RMN-GP
24
Pulitzer Arts Foundation, 2001Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts, 2001© Photo : Shinkenchiku-sha
Dessin de Projet Nakanoshima II - Œeuf Urbain (non réalisé), 1989Drawing of Nakanoshima Project II - Urban Egg (proposal)© Photo : Tadao Ando Architect & Associates
Liangzhu Village Cultural Art Center, 2015Liangzhu Village Cultural Art Center, 2015© Photo : Vanke
Shanghai Poly Grand Theater, 2014Shanghai Poly Theater, 2014© Photo : Shigeo Ogawa
Centre Roberto Garza Sada, Université de Monterrey, 2012Roberto Garza Sada Center, Universty of Monterrey, 2012© Photo : Shigeo Ogawa
CHALLENGING THE URBAN
Musée Genesis (encours de réalisation), 2012Genesis Museum (in progress), 2012 © Photo : Tadao Ando Architect & Associates
25
Musée historique de Chikatsu-Asuka, 1994 Chikatsu-Asuka Historical Museum, Osaka, 1994 © Photo : Shinkenchiku-sha
Centre de jeunesse de la préfecture de Hyogo, 1989Children’s Museum, Hyogo, 1989© Photo : Tomio Ohashi
Musée historique de Sayamaike, 2001Sayamaike Historical Museum, Osaka, 2001Photo © Mitsuo Matsuoka
Awaji-Yumebutai, 1999Awaji-Yumebutai, 1999© Photo : Mitsuo Matsuoka
Musée d’art Nariwa, 1994 Nariwa Museum, 1994© Photo : Mitsuo Matsuoka
ORIGINS OF THE LANDSCAPE
Musée d’art moderne de Fort Worth, 2002 Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, 2002© Photo : Mitsuo Matsuoka
26
Colline du Bouddha, 2015Hill of the Buddha, 2015© Photo : Shigeo Ogawa
Benesse House Oval, 1995Benesse House Oval, Naoshima, 1995© Photo : Mitsumasa Fujitsuka
Benesse House Museum / Oval, Naoshima, 1992 / 1995Benesse House Museum / Oval, Naoshima, 1992 / 1995© Photo : Mitsuo Matsuoka
PROJECTS « NAOSHIMA »
Musée d’art de Chichu, 2004Chichu Art Museum, Naoshima, 2004© Photo : Tadao Ando Architect & Associates
Benesse House Museum, 1992Benesse House Museum, Naoshima, 1992© Photo : Kaori Ichikawa
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Musée d’art de Chichu, 2004Chichu Art Museum, Naoshima, 2004Photo © Tadao Ando Architect & Associates
Maquette de Punta della Dogana, 2009Model of Punta della Dogana, 2009© Photo : Shigeo Ogawa
Ando Museum, 2013Ando Museum, Naoshima, 2013Photo © Shigeo Ogawa
Fondation Kubach-Wilmsen, musée de sculpture sur pierre, 2010Stone Sculpture Museum, 2010© Photo : Shigeo Ogawa
Punta della Dogana, 2009Punta della Dogana, 2009© Photo : Shigeo Ogawa
DIALOGUES WITH HISTORY
Maquette de la Bourse de Commerce (en cours de réalisation), 2016Model of Bourse de Commerce (in progress), 2016© Photo : Tadao Ando Architect & Associates
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8. PRACTICAL INFORMATION
COMMISSIONING ALSO SHOWING AT THE CENTRE PRACTICAL INFORMATION
CuratorFrédéric MigayrouDeputy director of the musée nationale de l’art moderne – centre for industrial design,in charge of architecture, design and industrial forecasting
Associate curatorYuki Yoshikawa
StagingTadao Ando Architect & Associates
Architect/scenographerLaurence Le Bris
FRANZ WEST
12 SEPTEMBer - 10 DECEMBER 2018
Press officerTimothée Nicot+33 (0) 1 44 78 45 [email protected]
PRIX MARCEL DUCHAMP 2018
THE NOMINEES
10 OCTOBER – 31 DECEMBER 2018
Press officerDorothée [email protected]+33 (0) 1 44 78 46 60
LE CUBISME
17 OCTOBER 2018 – 25 FEBRUARY 2019
Press officerÉlodie Vincent+33 (0)1 44 78 48 [email protected]
At the Museum
MUSÉE EN ŒUVRE(S)
NEW SHOWING
OF THE CONTEMPORARY COLLECTIONS
FROM 20 SEPTEMBER 2017
Press officerTimothée Nicot+33 (0)1 44 78 45 [email protected]
HISTOIRE(S) D’UNE COLLECTION
NEW SERIES OF EXHIBITIONS-DOSSIERS
FROM THE MODERN COLLECTIONS
FROM 31 MAY 2018
Press officerTimothée Nicot+33 (0)1 44 78 45 [email protected]
Centre Pompidou75191 Paris cedex 04telephone00 33 (0)1 44 78 12 33métroHôtel de Ville, Rambuteau
TimesThe exhibition is open every day from 11 am to 9 pm, except Tuesdays Late-night opening Thursdays til 11 pm for exhibitions in Galeries 1 and 2
Prices€14, reduced price: €11 Valid for visits on the same day tothe musée national d’art moderne and all exhibitions.
Free entry to the museum and reduced-price entry to the exhibitionsfor those aged under 26,teachers and students from art, drama, dance and music schools, as well as members of La Maison des artistes. Free entry with membership of the POP programme.
Ticket can be printed at homewww.centrepompidou.fr
