The newest volume in our popular Conversations series features Japanese architect Tadao Ando. One of the most celebrated living architects, Ando is best known for crafting serenely austere structures that fuse Japanese building traditions with Western modernism. His minimalist masterworks-geometric forms clad in silky-smooth exposed concrete-are suffused with natural light and set in perfect harmony with the landscape. In these highlights from lectures delivered at the University of Tokyo's Graduate School of Architecture, Ando candidly describes his experiences as a largely self-taught practitioner, tracing his development from an early interest in the traditional building craft of his native Japan through his political awakening in the turbulent 1960s to his current stature as one of the world's foremost architects. In addition to exploring his aesthetic influences and working process, Ando offers students a road map not only for maintaining professional integrity, but also for becoming effective agents of change in the world. The newest volume in our popular Conversations series features Japanese architect Tadao Ando. One of the most celebrated living architects, Ando is best known for crafting serenely austere structures that fuse Japanese building traditions with Western modernism. His minimalist masterworks, geometric forms clad in silky-smooth exposed concrete, are suffused with natural light and set in perfect harmony with the landscape. In these highlights from lecturesdelivered at the University of Tokyos Graduate School of Architecture, Ando candidly describes his experiences as a largely self-taught practitioner, tracing his development from an early interest in the traditional building craft of his native Japan through his political awakening in the turbulent 1960s to his current stature as one of the worlds foremost architects. In addition to exploring his aesthetic influences and working process, Ando offers students a road map not only for maintaining professional integrity, but also for becoming effective agents of change in the world Tadao Ando: Conversations with Students, the first of Andos writings to be translated into English, includes a foreword by Ando written specifically for this publication Highlights from five lectures delivered by Tadao Ando at the University of Tokyo s Graduate School of Architecture in which he candidly describes growing up in postwar Japan, the people and experiences that inspired him, and most importantly of cultivating a fighting spirit in order to find one s voice as an artist and to battle social injustice. Table of Contents Foreword, Tadao Ando Preface Chapter 1: Regionalism Chapter 2: Toward a Living Architecture Chapter 3: Architecture and Urbanism Chapter 4: Individuality Chapter 5: Process Chapter 6: A Love for Architecture Q&A. Preface 8 Origins 12 Regionalism 28 Toward a Living Architecture 46 Individuality 56 Partiality and Totality in Architecture 68 A Love for Architecture 78 Questions and Answers 90 Afterword and Credits 96
