Tadao Ando

Tadao Ando is one of the best-known and most inuential architects of the contemporary age. His work is unmistakably spiritual, even for a nonbeliever. Heavily inuenced by Japanese traditions and primarily interested in using concrete as a building material, Ando leverages simplicity to make it easy for people to experience the spirit and beauty of nature, leaving out ornament in favor of emphasizing the buildings' surroundings and embedding with the natural world. To Ando, sunlight, wind, and rain are expressions of the natural world, and geometry is also part of the underlying reality of life. Philip Jodidio provides insight into Ando's unique way of envisioning spiritual spaces, which intermingle simplicity with mystery and rationality with wild nature. The volume features thirteen places-from the Hill of the Buddha in Sapporo, Japan, which is surrounded by thousands of lavender plants, to the Meditation Space in Paris, where one can pause for a moment of quiet reection. The Church of the Light is marked only by a cruciform opening that leaves the spectator to contemplate the qualities of form, light, and space. At the Water Temple, an elliptical lotus pond appears behind a curved wall.