Tadao Ando has become an influential architect many different times throughout my architectural journey. Visiting the Museum of Modern Art in Fort Worth was an enlightening experience. Reading about architecture and looking at pictures is an excellent research tool, but there is nothing that can come close to genuinely experiencing the building through your own life’s perspective. Ando’s work comes off as simple to the arrive viewer, but shows the complexity of simplicity to the more curious. Diving into his teachings, you get an understanding of how he solves problems of the balance of nature and place in his architectural designs. His designs are thought to provoke, pushing the modern architectural agenda. When looking at my designs throughout architecture school, my designs might be seen as complex with an exploration in form rather than a simplistic solution to a complex problem. Even being a keen follower of the deconstructivism movement of Frank Gehry and Daniel Libeskind, I still find myself time and time again falling in love with Tadao Ando’s teachings. Tadao has earned the term starchitect and master builder as he merges structures with the natural landscape to create once in a lifetime experiences. The complete balance of life incorporated in architectural design is a goal all architects strive for. Culturally Japan has been deep-rooted in the idea of human life is intertwined with nature. Featuring the ideology of humans is nature, by fact, not disconnected in the modern-day metropolis. Place defines the architectural solutions driven by the location. Whether cultural, natural, or climate. Tadao Ando has contributed more than enough to the future of architecture around the globe.
Photo taken by John Zogg
Photo taken by John Zogg