Nurturing the Dreams of the Bearers of Our Future

Described at times as a “fighter” architect, Tadao Ando tends to be associated with austere spaces formed of exposed cast-in-place concrete. Yet his extensive portfolio includes no shortage of buildings designed specifically for children, such as kindergartens, schools, and libraries. What has been his approach to creating such spaces for children, the bearers of our future?

Located beside a reservoir nestled in the hills in the outskirts of Himeji, Hyogo, this facility offers a place for children to freely play and gain various experiences. It is the first work of public architecture that Ando realized.

The three-dimensional composition of geometric spaces has been embedded into the landscape to blend with its natural setting, and contains a library, craft room, and various other playspaces tailored to stimulate the imagination of children.

The reflecting pools surrounding the building appear to flow continuously into the nearby reservoir. They offer a place for children to play.

For Ando, who at the time had mainly been designing housing in urban contexts, the vast natural setting of this project opened the opportunity to explore architectural themes that would continue to reappear in his subsequent work.

Japan’s first ever library dedicated to children’s books, made by renovating a building originally built as the Imperial Library. Ando inserted two glass boxes into the historic structure with the aim of reviving it for the present.


The first glass box pierces diagonally through the front of the building and serves as a new entrance space. The delicate glass creates a striking contrast with the building’s original massive façade.

The second glass box lines the third level of the building’s rear façade. It contains a lounge space that incorporates the original exterior wall and has enhanced the circulation to meet contemporary needs.

The dialogue between the spaces created by the old existing elements and modern glass boxes. The design manifests Ando’s wish to create a place where children and adults who were also once children can engage in a dialogue through the books.

A kindergarten built on a verdant forested site. The design makes abundant use of wood, giving the spaces a warmth that cannot be attained with exposed concrete.

The skylights bring in sunlight, while the corridor draws in the breeze. Ando designed the spaces so that the children could take in nature’s presence together with the surrounding forest.

The children always actively run about and play on the 60-meter-long veranda space that opens onto a grassy field. Having no defined purpose, the space encourages children to think for themselves about how it can be used.


The aim was to create a building that would not only be comfortable and functional but also offer rich “white spaces” to help foster the children’s development and independence.

A small private museum on a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean. It was built for exhibiting a picture book collection assembled over a span of three decades by a woman who runs a kindergarten. The books on display cover the entirely of the walls in a triple-height space.

Here, too, Ando aimed to create an environment with plenty of white space for the children to discover their own spots to read the books.

The interior unfolds along four staircases, creating a three-dimensional labyrinth that offers both enclosed spaces for quiet reading and airy veranda-like spaces for enjoying the ocean view.
 

Inside this labyrinth, the children can discover various books, flip through them together with their friends or in solitude, and let their imagination roam out into the world beyond the windows.

Fifteen years later, Ando once again designed a place for children to encounter books: the Nakanoshima Children’s Book Forest, which he personally funded the construction of as a way of giving back to his long-time base of Osaka.

The library for children came to fruition after Ando decided that if he could create something, he wanted to create something that would help nurture the future of society.
 
This building also features a high-ceilinged space lined with large bookshelves and small hideout-like nooks, and invites children to discover various books by wandering around as though in a forest.

After this project, Ando went on to create the Tono Children’s Book Forest, a two-story wooden building made using materials from an approximately 120-year-old house in Tono, Iwate, which is known as the setting of the Tales of Tono.

In the following year, Ando completed the Kobe Children’s Book Forest in Kobe, the city where he was born and raised. The building is centered on a well-lit space with a large opening facing a park. On sunny days, visitors can take the books out to the terrace while enjoying the outdoors.

In summary, Ando’s architecture for children, the bearers of our future, can be characterized as places designed to nurture the buds of tomorrow’s culture through providing rich undefined spaces that encourage children to think and act on their own within natural settings.