3 December 2020 Tadao Ando When you look at Japanese traditional architecture, you have to look at Japanese culture and its relationship with nature. You can actually live in a harmonious, close contact with nature – this very unique to Japan.
3 December 2020 Tadao Ando I hope America can also be the cultural leader of the world, and use this frontier spirit to lead and show others that we need courage to go places where we have not gone before.
3 December 2020 Tadao Ando The level of detail and craft is something that’s inscribed within the original design concept. And so when I begin to draw, I know what kind of detailing I want the building to have.
3 December 2020 Tadao Ando When I design buildings, I think of the overall composition, much as the parts of a body would fit together. On top of that, I think about how people will approach the building and experience that space.
3 December 2020 Tadao Ando I think of the past and the future as well as the present to determine where I am, and I move on while thinking of these things.
3 December 2020 Tadao Ando Italy is full of historical buildings. And Europe holds a great history of philosophy from Greece until today. I read all those books and see these buildings, and I think of where I stand when I design my architecture.
3 December 2020 Tadao Ando All those involved in the construction of an architectural design, from the architect to the builder, have an attachment to the architecture, although it’s difficult to quantify the attachment.
3 December 2020 Tadao Ando At the same time, I would add that the American people have a lot of courage.
3 December 2020 Tadao Ando Spiritual space is lost in gaining convenience. I saw the need to create a mixture of Japanese spiritual culture and modern western architecture.
3 December 2020 Tadao Ando I would like my architecture to inspire people to use their own resources, to move into the future.
3 December 2020 Tadao Ando If you give people nothingness, they can ponder what can be achieved from that nothingness.
3 December 2020 Tadao Ando People tend not to use this word beauty because it’s not intellectual – but there has to be an overlap between beauty and intellect.
3 December 2020 Tadao Ando But now, more and more, its society is concerned with economy and finance.
3 December 2020 Tadao Ando Without this spirit, Modernist architecture cannot fully exist. Since there is often a mismatch between the logic and the spirit of Modernism, I use architecture to reconcile the two.
3 December 2020 Tadao Ando Japanese architecture is traditionally based on wooden structures that need renovating on a regular basis.
3 December 2020 Tadao Ando I believe that the way people live can be directed a little by architecture.
3 December 2020 Tadao Ando The computer offers another kind of creativity. You cannot ignore the creativity that computer technology can bring. But you need to be able to move between those two different worlds.
3 December 2020 Tadao Ando Japanese traditional architecture is created based on these conditions. This is the reason you have a very high degree of connection between the outside and inside in architecture.
3 December 2020 Tadao Ando You can’t really say what is beautiful about a place, but the image of the place will remain vividly with you.
3 December 2020 Tadao Ando If I can create some space that people haven’t experienced before and if it stays with them or gives them a dream for the future, that’s the kind of structure I seek to create.
3 December 2020 Tadao Ando I hope that America as a whole, and especially its architects, will become more seriously involved in producing a new architectural culture that would bring the nation to the apex – where it has stood before – and lead the world.
3 December 2020 Tadao Ando You cannot simply put something new into a place. You have to absorb what you see around you, what exists on the land, and then use that knowledge along with contemporary thinking to interpret what you see.
