Leaping Out Into the World: Building on the Memories of Places
As Ando expanded the site of his work from Japan to the world, he continued to evolve his own architecture through engaging with the history and memories of each place.
From Japan to the World
In 1982, growing interest in Ando from the international architectural community led to his work being showcased in a solo exhibition in Paris, and he was also invited to the P3 Conference that brought together prominent architects from around the globe.
Ando completed a seminar house near the Swiss-German border for the global furniture maker Vitra in 1993 and a meditation space marking UNESCO’s 50th anniversary in Paris two years later. The prayer space of light and concrete transcends all faiths.
These projects proved that Ando’s spatial compositions of geometry and concrete, which are informed by his travels and his Japanese sensibility toward nature, could stand on the international stage.
FARBICA（Benetton Communication Research Center） (2000) by Tadao AndoOriginal Source: Tadao Ando Architect & Associates
FARBICA（Benetton Communication Research Center）, 2000
FABRICA, an art school that preserves and revitalizes a historical villa in the suburbs of Treviso, Italy, and attracts young people from all over the world to study art and design, has a clear theme of how to confront the "history and memory" of a place in a foreign country.
Geometry connects the past and present
How does one engage the history and memories of a place in a foreign land? Ando first tackled this theme at FABRICA, an art school he designed by restoring and revitalizing an old villa outside Treviso, Italy.
The project began with an unexpected call from Benetton founder Luciano Benetton. The task of preserving the existing buildings while revitalizing them for modern use was a new challenge for Ando.
As the 17th-century villa was in poor condition, everything other than the structure was restored by local craftsmen using traditional techniques.
Most of the new facilities, such as the library and atrium, are buried underground.
Ando limited the number of new parts visible above ground to maintain the continuity between the villa and the surrounding country landscape.
The villa and new additions are designed in different architectural languages, but they are tied together by the geometric composition that covers the whole site.
The old and new mutually enhance each other while forming a single landscape within the rich sequence of spaces.
The concrete colonnade that continues through the existing building and into the new spaces. The column capitals formed with simple geometries achieve a sense of unity with the restored villa.
Punta della Dogana (2009) by Tadao AndoOriginal Source: Tadao Ando Architect & Associates
Punta della Dogana, 2009
Venice, the city of water. Punta della Dogana, built in the 15th century as a "customs house of the sea" on the opposite side of St. Mark's Square in the center of the city, is one of Venice's indispensable landscapes.
A Cosmo of Geometric Forms Confronting History
A project was initiated to give this special building a new life as a contemporary art museum. A team headed by businessman and art collector François Pinault and Ando were selected to conduct the redesign as a result of a city-organized competition.
Ando was tasked with converting the building into a contemporary art museum while complying with Venice’s strict restoration laws, applying structural reinforcement, and implementing flood-proofing measures.
In tackling the project, Ando began by removing the partition walls and finishes that had been added during earlier renovations in an attempt to restore the building to how it originally appeared in the 15th century.
The original brick walls and wooden trusses that were gradually revealed, and the plan that segments the triangular site into a series of long rooms.
Elements necessary for the building to be used as a contemporary art museum were added carefully within the original spaces that were revealed through the restoration work.
Ando made one major change as an exception: the central court, an impressive nested space with concrete walls that measure 16 meters a side. The modern walls confront the existing building that carries centuries of history.
Sunlight shining through the wooden trusses of the original building casts beautiful patterns on the concrete. The Venetian light, which has remained unchanged from bygone days, connects the past with the present.
Stone Sculpture Museum (2010) by Tadao AndoOriginal Source: Tadao Ando Architect & Associates
Stone Sculpture Museum, 2010
This small museum exhibits the works of the late Wolfgang Kubach and his partner Anna Maria Wilmsen, who are known for their sculptures based on book motifs. The museum was built over a long period of time on a gentle hillside in the Bad Kreuznach region of Germany.
Passing on Regional Memorie
The building, which was made by dismantling a traditional regional barn and placing its timber roof frame atop a concrete structure, achieves a sense of unity with the surrounding landscape even while being modern.
The barn’s timber frame was carefully dismantled and repaired by local carpenters and community volunteers.
The beautiful pattern of light and shadows created by the gaps in the framing. Only the timber members were preserved on the gable ends, and glass was installed in place of the walls.
Ando aimed to realize a modern design while passing on the memories of the past.
The lower level bounded by concrete walls contains a gallery that faces a reflecting pool and outdoor exhibition spaces. Although small, the museum has been provided with a variety of exhibition spaces.
The beautiful contrast between the light wooden structure that was revived by the local people and the tranquil concrete structure that was inserted as a new element has given rise to a one-of-a-kind building that is unique to this particular place.
Wrightwood_661 (2018) by Tadao AndoOriginal Source: Tadao Ando Architect & Associates
Wrightwood 659, 2018
House in Chicago, Ando’s first building in the United States. Wrightwood 659 was a project to convert the 90-year-old brick apartment building on the adjacent site into a gallery for contemporary art.
Expressing Modernity through Material Contrast
Ando left the façade as it was in order to preserve the integrity of the brick-house-lined streetscape, but completely redesigned the interior and structure to accommodate the program change from apartment to gallery.
The large atrium, which was created as a result of removing the existing floors, contrasts beautifully with the newly inserted concrete structure. Visitors traverse the stairs built in the three-story space.
As a result of establishing a contrast between the brick walls of the atrium that were stacked piece by piece and the concrete surfaces that were poured at once, the brick walls have been freed of their structural role and have taken on a weightless character.
The concrete exhibition spaces inserted within the brick envelope. A penthouse illuminated by a diagonal skylight was built onto the top floor.
View from the penthouse.
Bourse de Commerce / Pinault Collection (2021) by Tadao AndoOriginal Source: Tadao Ando Architect & Associates
Bourse de Commerce / Pinault Collection, 2021
Bourse de Commerce / Pinault Collection was built in Paris as a grain exchange in the 18th century and renovated by architect Henri Blondel in the late 19th century before being redesigned as a museum for displaying François Pinault’s contemporary art collection in 2021.
An Evolution of the Concept of New Versus Old
A new museum with François Pinault, who Ando has been working with in three projects centered around 'Punta della Dogana'.
To harness the essence of time embedded in the space of Bourse de Commerce, a relationship is forged where the new and the old stand independently, not through mere surface-level 'renewal' or 'addition,' but as distinct entities in confrontation.
His solution was to nest a cylindrical concrete wall measuring 9 meters in height and 29 meters in diameter within the rotunda in such a way that it does not touch the existing structure.
The ornamental 19th-century ceiling mural and Ando’s reticent concrete wall. His aim was to create “a building that connects the past with the present and the future”.
Building on his many years of practice, Ando further refined his method of drawing out the individuality of a space by contrasting the old and new.
The cylinder gave rise to a circular corridor along its outer side, where one can take in the interior façade of the beautiful 19th century architecture up close.
The stairs and walkways that unfold along the corridor lead visitors to the galleries around the rotunda and to the underground auditorium.
Ando has always looked for an opponent to confront and has created new architecture after an uncompromising battle with that opponent. It was the city that had been swallowed up by the waves of capital, the client who was trying to establish an individual lifestyle, and the environment and topography of the place where the architecture was to be built.
In a foreign land far away from Japan, Ando opened up new architectural possibilities by confronting the history of the land and the memories of the people of the land.
Working in a foreign land always brings me a rich encounter with the "world" and an opportunity for new "creation" from it. – Tadao Ando (Tadao Ando's Architecture 2: Outside Japan, TOTO Publishing, 2008)
Text: Shinichi Kawakatsu
Edit: Ryusuke Wada
Direction: neucitora
Supervisor: Tadao Ando Architect & Associates
