Tadao Ando: Endeavours

This comprehensive monograph on Pritzker prizewinning architect Tadao Ando covers the span of his impressive career, with previously unpublished material and insight into his sources of inspiration.

This in-depth monograph offers insight into Tadao Ando’s sober and elegant architecture through photographs, architectural drawings, and descriptions of eighty of his most significant works. Self-taught, the Corbusier-influenced architect opened his Osaka studio in 1969. Today, his notable works span the globe: London’s Tate Modern; St. Louis’s Pulitzer Arts Foundation; Osaka’s Church of the Light; Paris’s UNESCO Meditation Space; Venice’s Palazzo Grassi; Abu Dhabi’s Maritime Museum; and exceptional buildings in South Korea, Taiwan, China, Sri Lanka, Mexico, Germany, and throughout the United States.

Japanese design principles-from the use of concrete, simple geometric volumes, and the integration of natural elements such as light or water-are essential elements that Ando uses to provoke a physical experience through his architecture.

An interview with the architect accompanies his own writings and critical essays on various aspects of his work. A portfolio of Ando’s black and white photographs and colored pencil drawings from his previously unpublished travel notebooks provide new insight into his sources of inspiration. The book is completed with a biography and a chronology of his works to date, including some unrealized projects.