Ando

A monumental touch: Tadao Ando, master of the serene yet mighty

Philippe Starck describes him as a “mystic in a country which is no longer mystic.” Karl Lagerfeld regards him as a 21st-century genius who “saw everything, learned everything, then forgot everything and remade everything.” For the Pritzker Prize jury, “originality is his medium.”

In this essential TASCHEN introduction to Tadao Ando we explore the hybrid of tradition, modernism, and function that allows his buildings to enchant architects, designers, fashion designers, and beyond. Through key projects including private homes, churches, museums, apartment complexes, and cultural spaces, we explore a uniquely monumental yet comforting aesthetic that draws as much on the calm restraint of Japanese tradition as the compelling modernist vocabularies of Bauhaus and Le Corbusier.