“I Will Never Give Up Creating, Because to Create Is to Live”: An Interview With Architect Tadao Ando

The esteemed Japanese architect Tadao Ando is renowned for his Chapel on the Water in Shimukappu and his Church of the Light outside Osaka. In America, he is probably best known for the Pulitzer Arts Foundation and the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. This month Phaidon is publishing a new retrospective of his work. While Ando is most associated with his concrete work—and has been compared to the brutalist forebears personified in the film The Brutalist—his bare and simple style, influenced by Zen and haiku, is more about inner calm and strength than about harsh outward representation.

Born in 1941, Ando rose with his home country out of the ashes of World War II, with his early influences ranging from the Tōdai-ji and Kinkaku-ji temples in the ancient capitals of Nara and Kyoto to Frank Lloyd Wright’s Imperial Hotel building in Tokyo and Yodokō Guest House in Hyōgo Prefecture, built for Tazaemon Yamamura. Eventually, his inspiration went beyond the island nation’s borders to the work of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Louis Kahn, and Le Corbusier. (More recently, a private beach house that Ando designed in Malibu achieved notoriety when, as The New Yorker reported, Kanye West bought it and, perplexingly, turned it “into a ruin.”)

While heavily influenced by the Japanese concept of “kane,” which serves as a guiding framework for harmonizing various elements to create an order that leans into the classic clean lines and simplicity of Japanese architecture, Ando counterbalances this norm with concepts influenced by his early association with artists involved in the Gutai movement. He recalls the mantra of this avant-garde art group founded in Osaka in the 1950s: “Don’t copy anyone else, you have to create your own movement.”

Ando established his own practice in 1968, and his pioneering aesthetic mixes concrete, wood, water, and light while following the natural form of the landscape. The new book, Light and Space, is a collaboration with Richard Pare, the photographer Ando has trusted to record the essence of his designs.

Mark Edward Harris: Growing up in Osaka, you were close to Nara and Kyoto. That must have had a profound influence on your development as an architect.

Tadao Ando: Yes, you are absolutely right. Growing up near the ancient capitals of Nara and Kyoto, traditional Japanese architecture was a familiar presence in my life from an early age. I was naturally drawn to these spaces—the quiet atmosphere of temple precincts, enveloped by dense greenery, and the comfort of a veranda beneath a solid, overhanging roof. However, after deciding to pursue architecture in my late teens, I no longer simply experienced these spaces. Instead, as I sketched them, I began to contemplate the intentions behind their creation and the techniques used to bring them to life. This dialogue across time with the architects of the past became an essential form of learning for me, particularly as someone who was self-taught.

“I visited Le Corbusier’s Notre-Dame du Haut. Light, both beautiful and intense, poured down on the backs of people huddled in prayer. At that moment I realized this was the ideal space I had been seeking. One can create architecture simply by pursuing light.”

As I began to create my own architecture, international critics frequently pointed out a deep connection between my work and traditional Japanese architecture. Still, then as now, with a few exceptions, I have never deliberately sought to express Japanese tradition through my architecture. If anything, if others perceive a sense of Japanese tradition in my architecture, I believe it is simply a natural manifestation of the time I spent in those ancient cities during my youth—memories that have become an inseparable part of me.

You wrote in the introduction to your new book that Le Corbusier’s Notre-Dame du Haut had a profound influence on your style.

More than half a century ago, when I was in my 20s, I traveled the world in search of architecture. One day I visited Le Corbusier’s Notre-Dame du Haut in Ronchamp and happened upon a mass. Light, both beautiful and intense, poured down on the backs of people huddled together in prayer. It was solemn yet gentle, embracing their hearts. At that moment I realized this was the ideal space I had been seeking. One can create architecture simply by pursuing light. That was the truth I learned. Since then, I have continued my pursuit of light to this very day. And it all began in the space of Ronchamp.

You were also exposed to the work of Frank Lloyd Wright, who was profoundly influenced by his time in Japan as well as all things Japanese, including Okakura Kakuzō’s The Book of Tea. You also have been influenced by books and done spaces for authors, including a museum serving as a memorial to the philosopher Kitaro Nishida in Ishikawa Prefecture and the Museum of Literature in Himeji to commemorate writer Ryōtarō Shiba. Did reading their words influence your designs of the spaces dedicated to them?

I make it a habit to read the works of writers and philosophers when designing a building dedicated to them. That said, I don’t have a dramatic story like Frank Lloyd Wright, who was deeply moved by a passage in The Book of Tea: “The essence of a room lies not in its walls or roof, but in the space enclosed by them.” The insights and emotions I gain from reading do not directly shape my architectural expressions. At most, they are thrown into the black box of my memory, occasionally surfacing when least expected.

Like The Book of Tea, Miyamoto Musashi’s 17th-century Book of Five Rings gave the West insight into Japanese culture. While it’s about Bushido, it can be seen in a larger context and applied well beyond the sword.

When I was young, I read a novel about Musashi’s life. I was deeply moved by his way of living, facing every moment with absolute resolve. To create architecture that truly has life, words are not enough. It takes the unwavering resolve of the creator.

“When the constraints are tight, when the program and budget leave little room for freedom, that is when you are forced to ask yourself, What is truly essential? What must I create? And at the end of that struggle, light emerges.”

How did your early occupation in boxing, a modern-day martial art, play a part in your development as an architect and what initially attracted you to architecture as a career?

A boxer stepping into the ring with gloves. An architect sketching with a pencil. At first glance, they seem like completely different professions, completely different ways of life. But to me, they are the same in one crucial way: Both are battles where you must overcome your own fears and move forward with courage.

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The Latin saying “solvitur ambulando” (it is solved by walking) seems to be something that is a very big part of your life. Are you still doing your daily promenades?

I lead an extremely simple life. I wake up in the morning and go to sleep at night. As soon as I wake up, I step outside and walk through the morning streets. Then I spend a few hours working at my studio before having lunch. After a short rest, I return to the studio to finish my work, then head to a nearby gym. I exercise, have dinner, read for a few hours, and then go to sleep. Unless I have to travel for work, I never break this routine.

In 2009 and 2014, I underwent two major surgeries, losing a total of five organs. That experience led me to adopt this steady rhythm of life. Before that, I had been relentlessly working at the same pace since my 30s, taking full advantage of my once robust health. After recovering from my first surgery, I deliberately cut my workload in half. This gave me the time to read, something I had long neglected due to work. Illness takes things away, but it also gives.

Without a pancreas, I now must inject insulin to regulate my blood sugar and carefully manage my diet. It is inconvenient, but I have come to see it as simply part of who I am. Even though I have lost five organs, as long as my fighting spirit and drive remain, I will never give up creating, because to create is to live.