Tadao Ando

TADAO ANDO (Osaka, 1941).
“Ando Museum Naoshima.”
Colored pencil and marker.
Measurements: 23.5 x 17 cm.

This drawing depicts the Ando Museum, a space that opened in 2013 on the Japanese island of Naoshima, one of the most important international hubs dedicated to contemporary art and architecture. Created using colored pencils and marker, the drawing offers a valuable insight into Tadao Ando’s creative process, in which architectural precision coexists with spontaneous, expressive lines that reflect the genesis of his projects.

Tadao Ando is one of the most important and influential architects in contemporary architecture. Self-taught, he began his career after independently studying the work of Le Corbusier, Louis Kahn, and traditional Japanese architecture. Since founding Tadao Ando Architect & Associates in 1969, he has built an international career characterized by his masterful use of exposed concrete, pure geometry, and the treatment of light as an architectural material. The designer of iconic buildings such as the Church of the Light, the Naoshima Museum of Contemporary Art, the Chichu Art Museum, the Pulitzer Foundation in St. Louis, and the expansion of the Pinault Collection at the Punta della Dogana in Venice, he received the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 1995, as well as the RIBA Gold Medal, the AIA Gold Medal, and the Praemium Imperiale. His work is considered one of the most significant contributions to international architecture in the 20th and 21st centuries.