Archinect - News

Tadao Ando's Naoshima New Museum of Art to open in early 2025

2024-11-27T09:11:00-05:00

Tadao Ando’s close three-decade building relationship with the Benesse Art Site in western Japan will celebrate a new milestone next spring with the opening of the Naoshima New Museum of Art, his tenth contribution for the cultural destination on Naoshima Island.

The scheme sighted the more than 34,000-square-foot museum to carefully integrate its hilltop surroundings, at the peak of which begins a progression down toward the structure that's finished externally with black plaster material reminiscent of burned cedar walls and ends in stacked pebble walls framing views from the Honmura district out onto the Seto Inland Sea.

Image rendering courtesy Tadao Ando

The project was meant to showcase both a new permanent collection and rotating exhibitions of art from Asia, adding four galleries and a ground-level café to the location whose entry sequence draws out further connections between the space, land, and people of the island.

Image rendering courtesy Tadao Ando

There are two basement...

Ye’s gutted Tadao Ando home is purchased by a crowd-sourced real estate investment startup

2024-08-27T12:25:00-04:00

An upstart California property investment venture named Belwood Investments has announced the signing of a purchasing agreement for the Malibu home Tadao Ando designed for Richard Sachs (and later purchased by Kanye West) in 2013. News of the announcement was made public on Monday after the home was placed on the market for a discounted price of $39 million this spring. In a press release, the firm states the deal was made for under $22 million.

The rapper-cum-fashion mogul’s devastating handiwork might otherwise be an obvious drawback. However, the firm, which promotes a crowdsourcing model of ownership, says it plans on spending $5 million to restore its interiors to their original state (the home was worth $75 million when it was constructed). The renovation is expected to take between 12 and 16 months, according to their announcement.

The New Yorker goes inside the architectural cadaver Kanye West made in Malibu

2024-06-11T17:45:00-04:00

Saxon had been hired to carve an oceanside Turrell out of an angular fifty-seven-million-dollar Ando. Ye revealed to Saxon—although not all at once—that he wanted no kitchen, bathrooms, A.C., windows, light fixtures, or heating. He was intent on cutting off the water and the power (and removing the house’s cable and wiring, which ran through the concrete in plastic tubes). He talked of clarity, simplicity, and a kind of self-reliance.

Former contractor Tony Saxson opens up to The New Yorker about his time working with Kanye West and Bianca Censori on the stripped-bare interiors of their Tadao Ando-designed home in Malibu. Some of the better quotes include Ando saying “my decision to accept [clients] projects depends mainly on their personality and aura” and Ye telling Saxson triumphantly “This is going to be my bomb shelter. This is going to be my Batcave.”

Saxson would later file a lawsuit against West for the alleged illegal termination of his services on the demolition project. The house (which appears in a state of decay and cinematic disrepair via a drone video) was re-listed for $39 million – $14 million less than the $57.3 million West purchased it for in September 2021 – in early April.

Kanye West relists Tadao Ando-designed Malibu home for $14 million less

2024-04-12T12:04:00-04:00

Kanye 'Ye' West has reportedly reduced the price of his previously listed Tadao Ando-designed home in Malibu, California, to $39 million, according to Realtor.com. The new price is substantially lower than both the original $53 million listing and the $75 million price tag it carried in 2020 before he paid $57.3 million to purchase the home in September of 2021.

The 4,000-square-foot design from 2013 had been previously owned by Richard Sachs. The deprecation might stem from its reported current state, which was affected by a hasty “gut renovation” performed last year and leaving its interior without finishes and (possibly) electricity, light fixtures, or appliances — resulting in a recent lawsuit.

Marmol Radziner served as the executive architect and general contractor for its original construction. Ando is currently working on the design of a vacation home for West's ex-wife Kim Kardashian in the Palm Springs area after seeing his MPavilion10 commission extended by another full y...

Tadao Ando's MPavilion extended for another year in Melbourne

2024-04-10T13:26:00-04:00

The Naomi Milgrom Foundation and City of Melbourne have jointly announced they will be extending the run of Tadao Ando’s new MPavilion commission at Queen Victoria Gardens for another full year until March of 2025.

"We’ve been thrilled to see visitors of all ages and from far and wide flock to MPavilion, curious to experience what Tadao Ando, an extraordinary master of design, has created for Melbourne. Being in the pavilion, looking across water and out to the green of the surrounding parklands has an immediate and unique calming effect, a slowing down amidst the fast pace of contemporary life," the foundation’s founder Naomi Milgrom said.

Photo: John Gollings, courtesy of MPavilion.

"The pavilion has seen myriad curated and informal activities this last summer, from pilates and picnics to drawing, photography and more. Engaging in great architecture and design enriches our city and our lives, and this extended partnership with the City of Melbourne means even more of the community...

Art performance at Tadao Ando's concrete MPavilion features grayscale gelato

2024-01-26T17:26:00-05:00

An exciting and tasty art performance has taken shape at the Tadao Ando-designed MPavilion in Melbourne, Australia.

It comes in the form of grayscale gelato, created by Brazilian artist João Loureiro in collaboration with local creamery Piccolina Gelateria. The treat is available in six different flavors, each a different shade of gray ranging from light gray to nearly black. No flavors are labeled, stimulating a unique and surprising sensory experience with pavilion visitors during the Australian summer months.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Piccolina Gelateria (@piccolinagelateria)

The gelato colors mirror the pavilion’s aesthetic, which comprises enclosed concrete perimeter walls and an aluminum-clad, single-column main structure and roof.

Related: Tadao Ando's MPavilion opens in Melbourne. Image: Beatrice Eckermann

As stated by MPavilion, "...this work questions our sense of comfort and forces us to rethink associations that have been rooted in u...

Kanye West lists gutted Tadao Ando home for $53 million in Malibu

2023-12-20T12:37:00-05:00

Designed by Pritzker Prize-winning Tadao Ando, the house features a concrete exterior in keeping with the acclaimed architect’s streamlined brutalist ethos. In the couple of dozen months that Ye has owned the property, the music performer and designer removed the home’s interiors, leaving it essentially gutted. Now, instead of renovating the four-bedroom beachfront house on Malibu Road, Ye has decided to sell it, with a price tag of $53 million (he’s listing it at a loss).

Post-divorce Ye apparently contracted a gut renovation that left Ando’s original 2013 design looking more like “a bomb shelter from the 1910s” in the year leading up to its new listing. That endeavor ended in a $1 million lawsuit brought forth by its project manager over dangerous working conditions that remains unsettled.

The four-bed, 4.5-bathroom home had been purchased for $57.3 million in September of 2021. Jason Oppenheim, the agent in charge of its sale, said the new price “reflect[s] the need for the interior finishes to be replaced” and that he was confident in its ability to be “brought up to 2024 standards.”

Ando is meanwhile working on a brand new Palm Springs abode for its former co-inhabitant Kim.

Tadao Ando's MPavilion opens in Melbourne

2023-11-14T20:00:00-05:00

Tadao Ando’s oasis-like design for the MPavilion 10 has been revealed in Melbourne to coincide with the five-month commission’s grand opening this Thursday.

Photos taken ahead of the opening ceremonies reveal the intimacy of the low-profile structure in the city’s Queen Victoria Gardens, which includes a reflecting pool in homage to traditional Japanese gardens. Enclosed concrete perimeter walls frame an aluminum-clad single-column main structure covered by a 47-foot-wide roof.

Its production creates a sequence that plays on the architect’s career-long fascination with light and darkness. Ando said previously that he considers the design "eternal, not in material or structure but in the memory of a landscape that will continue to live in people’s hearts."

Photo: John Gollings, courtesy of MPavilion.

"It is the expression of human reason and the pursuit of ethereal space. With the circle and square, emptiness is given form. The emptiness, in its silence, lets the light and wind ente...

Kanye West sued by project manager at Tadao Ando-designed home who was fired for refusing to perform illegal work

2023-09-14T16:13:00-04:00

A project overseer and estate guardian for Ye, previously recognized as Kanye West, claims he was dismissed for declining to eliminate all windows and electricity from Ye's Malibu residence, as per a legal complaint submitted recently in the Los Angeles County Superior Court and reported by NBC.

The legal action points to breaches of several labor standards, encompassing hazardous work environments, unsettled salaries, and unjust retaliatory firing.

The suit stems from a comprehensive overhaul the controversial rapper was attempting at the $57.3 million property, allegedly with the intention of converting Tadao Ando’s 4-bed, 4.5-bath residence into a bunker-type structure that resembles “a bomb shelter from the 1910s.” Photos published in May appear to show nearly all of the home’s glass and interior fit-out has been removed, adding to the contractor’s claims that Ye was pursuing a design devoid of appliances, electrical power, or even light fixtures.

“He continues his pattern of ...

Tadao Ando opens ‘Space of Light’ pavilion in South Korea

2023-08-28T17:21:00-04:00

Tadao Ando has shared photos of his studio's new Space of Light meditative pavilion at the Museum SAN in Wonju, South Korea.

The second of two pavilions designed for the ten-year-old rural arts institution opened earlier this month. It is the third structure on the Ando-designed campus in Gangwon Province and coincides with the museum's exhibition of his youthful early designs — a tourist draw that's recently been extended for another three months owing to the self-taught Pritzker winner's tremendous popularity.

Image courtesy Museum SAN

The object of this design, Ando says, is to emulsify nature into the user’s experience, incorporating light into the otherwise murky auspices of the concrete-walled pavilion’s interior space uninterrupted in a way that recalls the philosophies embodied in his breakout 1989 Church of Light in Osaka, which features a nearly identical narrow cross opening in its façade.

Image courtesy Museum SAN

Offering a demarcation from its domed 2019 predecessor, wh...

Tadao Ando on 'Youth' and optimism for museum design

2023-06-28T08:00:00-04:00

I believe that a museum is the light of hope [...] A place where people can obtain the ‘nutrients for the soul’ necessary for living a rich and fulfilling life.

Speaking to The Art Newspaper, Ando says: “I always struggle with where to draw the line between nature and artificiality as I proceed with design,” telling the interviewer Edwin Heathcote (who says his 2013 Museum SAN in South Korea illustrates “the crisis in contemporary architecture”) that his goal for the project was to create “one big garden” before remarking on the Bourse de Commerce in Paris, the necessity of adaptive reuse, personal health challenges, and legacy.

The final leg of the 81-year-old icon’s touring retrospective Tadao Ando: Youth exhibition culminates at Museum SAN and will remain on view until July 30th of this year.

Jay-Z and Beyoncé buy $200 million Tadao Ando-designed seaside mansion in Malibu

2023-05-24T15:12:00-04:00

In a colossal real estate move, Jay-Z and Beyoncé have purchased an extravagant vacation home in Malibu for a record-breaking $200 million, as reported by Dirt.

The sale price ranks as the most ever paid for a California home and the second-most paid for a U.S. residence, behind the Ken Griffin-owned penthouse at 220 Central Park South in Manhattan.

Image courtesy Google Maps

The 8-acre Brutalist-style estate, designed by celebrated Japanese architect Tadao Ando in collaboration with L.A-based WHY Architects, flaunts unobstructed ocean and coastline views, direct access to a scenic beach, two outdoor pools, and a 40,000-square-foot mansion.

The Carter family's latest acquisition, initially commissioned by soap opera scions Bill and Maria Bell, was completed in 2014, taking 15 years to plan and build.

Courtesy of WHY; Photo by Florian Holzherr

The original listing had the residence at $295 million, representing an insane 1934.48% increase of the original $14.5 million its previous o...

Tadao Ando reveals oasis-like MPavilion design

2023-05-11T16:18:00-04:00

Tadao Ando’s design for the 10th MPavilion in Melbourne has been revealed, showcasing the architect’s ambition towards placemaking and the social cohesion of memory and his related desire to "find a scene of eternity within the oasis" that is the city’s 12-acre Queen Victoria Gardens.

Ando says the pavilion will be "eternal, not in material or structure, but in the memory of a landscape that will continue to live in people’s hearts."

"To reflect the lively nature of the site, like a blank canvas, I imagined an architecture of emptiness," his statement to the press continues. "Pure geometry outlines the composition of this design. Ancient Egyptians used fundamental geometry to create ordered spaces and structures in the natural world. Geometry formed the foundation of philosophical study in ancient Greece."

Image courtesy of Tadao Ando Architects & Associates

"It is the expression of human reason and the pursuit of ethereal space. With the circle and square, emptiness is given form. T...

Tadao Ando accused of copying artist Willie Cole's designs with recycled Met Gala chandelier

2023-05-03T11:16:00-04:00

Last night, a star-studded crowd trickled into the Metropolitan Museum of Art for its annual gala beneath a gargantuan chandelier made of what appeared to be plastic water bottles. After the event took place, several members of the art community noticed what appeared to be suspicious similarities between the chandelier and the plastic works of American artist Willie Cole.

Cole’s work is included in the museum’s permanent collection, and the large-scale chandeliers in question were profiled just two months ago by the New York Times. The large-scale pieces were made of nearly 6,000 individual water bottles and were created to instigate a conversation about the water crisis afflicting Cole’s hometown of Newark, New Jersey, in 2019. Some have found them comparable on social media.

The pieces were also profiled in Vogue yesterday, which quoted event planner Raul Àvila as saying: "We wanted to find a way to create a sustainable design that would implement the bottles into a breathtaking installation unlike anything we’ve done before."

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Willie cole (@williecoleart)

Kim Kardashian and Tadao Ando meet on Palm Springs dream home design

2023-04-07T16:38:00-04:00

Apparent Japanese architecture aficionado Kim Kardashian recently traveled to the country to meet with Pritzker winner Tadao Ando, according to an Instagram post made by the celebrity mogul Thursday.

Ando is designing a private residence for Kardashian in the Palm Springs area, the details of which were first uncovered by Vogue magazine last year. In her post, Kardashian implied its construction was set to break ground soon, though she was sparse on other design details aside from sharing what appears to be a rendering of a grey cast concrete structure that more closely resembles a contemporary art museum than a home.

Ando has designed several celebrity residences over the years, including a $75 million compound for fashion designer Tom Ford and the Malibu home currently owned by Kardashian’s troubled ex-husband following a $57.3 million post-divorce splurge. Kardashian is also reportedly in talks with Kengo Kuma for another vacation residence at an undisclosed American lakeside loc...

Tadao Ando’s tribute to Karl Lagerfeld will take over the Met’s Costume Institute this spring

2023-03-23T17:16:00-04:00

The three-decade professional relationship between Karl Lagerfeld and Pritzker winner Tadao Ando will be continued in a new exhibition designed by the architect for the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

Opening to coincide with the Lagerfeld-themed Met Gala during the first week of May, Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty promises to be a treatise on Lagerfeld’s work organized around the duality between straight lines and the “Serpentine line” first theorized in William Hogarth’s 1753 essay The Analysis of Beauty.

The essay was supposedly an inspiration for the late fashion designer throughout his decorated career, the arch and milestones of which are covered in the introductory segment to the exhibition. This introduction will be followed by two galleries that hone in on themes derived from each type of line and are divided into nine ‘sublines’ included as examples of contradictory impulses throughout his friend’s long oeuvre.

Related on Archinect:...

Tadao Ando is selected as the designer of the 10th MPavilion in Australia

2023-03-15T12:35:00-04:00

The Australian Naomi Milgrom Foundation has announced former Pritzker winner Tadao Ando will design the 10th MPavilion commission in Melbourne’s Queen Victoria Gardens.

Ando is now the seventh architect selected for the prestigious five-month-long commission, which began in 2014 and has since hosted over 3,500 free events for more than 900,000 guests since its inception.

The Chichu Art Museum / Naoshima by Tadao Ando Architects &Associates. Photo by Mitsuo Matsuoka. Courtesy Tadao Ando Architect & Associates

21_21 DESIGN SIGHT. Photo by Mitsuo Matsuoka, courtesy Tadao Ando Architect & Associates

The Pavilion will become his first-ever realized design within Australia and follows last year’s installation by the Thai studio all(zone), which will be on view until April 6th before being reinstalled elsewhere in the city.

Milgrom added that she has long admired how the architect’s work “responds to and incorporates the particularity of a place into his design, and his belief that archite...

Tadao Ando to receive the Andrée Putman Lifetime Achievement Award

2022-09-06T08:00:00-04:00

Prolific, self-taught, and Pritzker Prize-winning Japanese architect Tadao Ando has been announced today as the recipient of the Andrée Putman Lifetime Achievement award. The recognition is presented by the Créateurs Design Awards, a program that highlights extraordinary work in architecture, interior design, product design, photography, journalism, and curation.

Previously on Archinect: New photos of Tadao Ando's Bourse de Commerce — Pinault Collection makeover. (Image courtesy Bourse de Commerce – Pinault Collection. © Tadao Ando Architect & Associates, NeM / Niney et Marca Architectes, Agence Pierre-Antoine Gatier. Photo by Patrick Tourneboeuf. Artist: Urs Fischer.)

“France has a cultural legacy of pursuing ideas beyond the boundary of an era. Revolutionary projects such as the Eiffel Tower and the Centre Pompidou came to fruition in Paris, redefining the city’s historical context,” Ando said in response to winning the award. “Coresidence of the genius loci, the essence of a pl...

Issey Miyake, the feted 'architect' of high fashion, has passed away in Tokyo aged 84

2022-08-09T21:10:00-04:00

A remarkable intellectual titan of contemporary fashion and high culture has passed away as multiple outlets are reporting the death of iconic Japanese fashion designer Issey Miyake on Friday, August 5th after a battle with cancer.

A pioneer of the pleat and use of technologically-driven design, Miyake became a symbol of radical interventions in fashion. He was championed by photographer Irving Penn, Artforum, and many other art world mainstays who formed his early client base, which would later famously include Apple founder Steve Jobs.

In an industry ruled by form, proportion, and silhouette, Miyake used a complex understanding of architectural concepts to design garments that were sculptural in structure and unrepeatable in their unique ability to convey movement and the fluid body. Noted as the first Asian designer to "storm Paris runways in the '70s," his work continues to transcend contemporary fashion. His research-based Pleats Please and later Homme Plissé Issey Miyake lin...

The Tokyo Toilets project will star in Wim Wenders' next film

2022-06-27T20:41:00-04:00

The fictional film will be set in a public restroom that is part of the real-life urban renewal project known as the “The Tokyo Toilet project", which involves the creation of 17 public bathrooms in key locations in the Japanese capital with designs by world renowned Japanese architects, such as Tadao Ando and Sou Fujimoto. Wenders said he was inspired by the futuristic look and unique cultural spirit of the project and decided to set his forthcoming untitled film inside one of them.

The angsty Alice in the Cities and Tokyo-Ga director said “there is something very Japanese about the idea, about the whole setting […] I almost think it’s a Utopian idea” in reference to the Nippon Foundation’s two-year-old Tokyo Toilet project, which has to date produced 17 different designs from Toyo Ito, Shigeru Ban, and Tadao Ando, among others. Production will begin in October. The film is said to center around four narratives and stars Koji Yakusho in the lead role as a Tokyo sanitation worker.

“First of all, I love architecture. In another life, I certainly want to be an architect. And I slowly realized how close the work of an architect to the work of a director really is in many ways,” he said at a press conference, referencing Ando's design in particular. “I truly feel like he is a contemporary of mine. Though we don”t meet so often, I feel a connection and I’m happy that I kno...

Kim Kardashian taps Tadao Ando and Kengo Kuma for post-divorce vacation homes

2022-02-11T12:30:00-05:00

At present, Pritzker Prize–winning architect Tadao Ando is building Kim’s Palm Springs home, which she describes as “concrete, gray-toned, and really zen,” while Kengo Kuma, who designed the National Stadium for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics as well as LVMH’s Japan headquarters, is creating a glass-and-wood lake house for her in an undisclosed location, where Kim travels every Fourth of July.

The Palm Springs home and new Kuma design will offer some competition to the pricey portfolio her ex-husband has been building with his recent $57.3 million acquisition of an Ando-designed Malibu home that was custom-built for investment manager Richard Sachs in 2013.

Tadao Ando Interview with Archinect: 20 Minutes with a Master

Kardashian, who visited Ando's Chichu Art Museum in her past life with the Donda rapper, recently acquired ownership of the couple’s minimalist Hidden Hills home in the fall as part of the stipulation for their now-finalized divorce The Vogue cover girl credited the design process and collaboration with Axel Vervoodt with instigating a “love affair with architecture, specifically Japanese” as she spoke with the magazine’s Jen Wang about her SKIMS side hustle and new redefining role as the face of Balenciaga.

The Proust Questionnaire: Kengo Kuma

Kanye West buys $57.3 million Tadao Ando-designed Malibu home

2021-09-20T18:04:00-04:00

Less than a month after the release of his long-awaited album, “Donda,” Kanye West paid $57 million for a Tadao Ando-designed Malibu beach house, which first listed in May 2020.

West purchased the 4,000-square-foot concrete home in an off-market deal with retired Wall Street financier Richard Sachs. It was initially listed at $75 million in May 2020 before being removed from the market.

The former owner commissioned the home, and it was completed in 2013. It has four bedrooms, 4.5 bathrooms, and is directly on the beach. According to Dirt, the structure reportedly required 1,200 tons of poured concrete, 200 tons of steel reinforcement, and 12 pylons driven 60 feet into the ground to support the heavy home from sinking into the sand.

Tadao Ando is reportedly one of West’s favorite architects, who described a visit to the art island of Naoshima, Japan, where Ando contributed several building designs, as “life-changing.”

Marmol Radziner was the executive architect and general contractor on this project.

Tadao Ando-designed 20,662 acre estate for Tom Ford finally finds a buyer

2021-01-12T11:42:00-05:00

After more than four years on the market, Tom Ford’s sprawling New Mexico estate has finally found a buyer. The property, better known as the Cerro Pelon Ranch, sits just outside Santa Fe in the Galisteo Basin area, and measures a whopping 20,662 acres.

The home features the Silverado Movie Town, which is built on the site in the 1980s, writes Joyce Chen for Architectural Digest. The set was originally used for the Western film Silverado, and later for films including 2011's Thor.

Previously on Archinect: Tadao Ando's sprawling Santa Fe compound for Tom Ford hits the market at $75M. Image: kevinbobolskygroup.com

As we reported four and a half years ago, when the property was first listed, Cerro Pelon Ranch had construction oversight provided by LA firm Marmol Radziner.

Read our interview with Tadao Ando, Tadao Ando Interview: 20 Minutes with a Master

"Built by award-winning architect Tadao Ando, the main house sits low to the earth over an expansive reflecting pool, with a wide walkway cutting across the water," writes Chen.

New photos of Tadao Ando's Bourse de Commerce — Pinault Collection makeover

2021-01-07T14:08:00-05:00

After years of construction and pandemic-related delays, the Bourse de Commerce — Pinault Collection in Paris has revealed a new opening date: on January 23rd (health regulations permitting), the 113,000-square-foot private museum of French billionaire François Pinault is set to welcome the public and offer a glimpse of his extensive contemporary art collection.

Photo: Marc Domage.

The monumental venue housing the extravaganza — a former grain exchange not far away from the Musée du Louvre — is capable of outshining the art it's hosting: Tadao Ando, in collaboration with Lucie Niney and Thibaut Marca of NeM agency and Pierre-Antoine Gatier, restored and completely transformed the 18th-century building.

Photo: Marc Domage.

"The Bourse de Commerce features ten exhibition galleries, as well as reception and mediation spaces," explains the project description. "They can put on different presentations or else work together in a continuum. A 284-seat Auditorium will host talks, encounters, ...

Tadao Ando completes slick public restroom design for The Tokyo Toilet project

2020-09-14T13:51:00-04:00

THE TOKYO TOILET, an initiative launched by the non-profit The Nippon Foundation to create save, clean, and appealing public restrooms throughout Tokyo's Shibuya ward, just completed its latest facility: Jingu-Dori Park, designed by Pritzker Prize laureate Tadao Ando, features a simple, functional layout realized in the architect's trademark elegant and minimalist formal language.

Photo: Satoshi Nagare.

Five of the 17 planned restroom facilities, designed by Shigeru Ban, Fumihiko Maki, Masamichi Katayama/Wonderwall, and Nao Tamura, already opened to the public earlier this summer while more are expected to launch in 2021, including toilets created by Toyo Ito, Kengo Kuma, and Sou Fujimoto.

Photo: Satoshi Nagare.

"I sought for this small architecture to exceed the boundaries of a public toilet to become a 'place' in the urban landscape that provides immense public value," Tadao Ando describes his concept. "Using this clear and simple reasoning for the concept of this structure, I chose...

The Tokyo Toilet Project: Pritzker Prize winners Shigeru Ban, Tadao Ando, Toyo Ito, and Fumihiko Maki among designers of new public restrooms

2020-08-17T14:36:00-04:00

Noteworthy Japanese architects, and even some Pritzker Prize laureates, are among the creators of 17 innovative public restroom designs throughout the bustling Shibuya area of Tokyo. Launched by the non-profit The Nippon Foundation, THE TOKYO TOILET project hopes to create save, clean, and appealing facilities "to make them accessible for everyone regardless of gender, age, or disability, to demonstrate the possibilities of an inclusive society."

Five of the 17 planned facilities, envisioned by Shigeru Ban, Fumihiko Maki, Masamichi Katayama/Wonderwall, and Nao Tamura, have recently opened to the public while more are expected to launch later this year and in 2021.

The Tadao Ando-designed restroom is scheduled to open on September 7th. Toilets created by Toyo Ito, Kengo Kuma, and Sou Fujimoto will be available next year.

Take a look at the initiative's first five releases below.

Designer: Shigeru Ban

Project description: "There are two things we worry about when entering a public r...

Opening of Tadao Ando's He Art Museum in China delayed due to coronavirus fears

2020-02-03T19:22:00-05:00

The He Art Museum (HEM) announced today that it will postpone its launch originally scheduled for 21 March due to uncertainties stemming from redoubled efforts to contain the 2019 novel coronavirus, or 2019-nCoV. The new private project in Shunde district of the city of Foshan in Guangdong Province is backed by Midea electronics founder He Jianfeng with a 16,000 sq m double helix structured building designed by Tadao Ando.

The privately-owned He Art Museum (HEM) in Foshan City, China commissioned Pritzker Prize-winning architect Tadao Ando in September 2015 to design its new gallery spaces and started construction in December of the same year, according to the museum's website.

"The architectural design highlights Tadao Ando’s challenge on 'dynamic geometry,' where the dual-spiral staircase and the courtyard done in cast-finish concrete will be unveiled for the first time, capturing the attention of the world," explains the museum's project description the Ando design.

"The architecture is presented in various types of 'circles,' ranging from its overall design to the details of its craftsmanship. These 'non-concentric circles' stacked together expand outwards provide tension and rhythm to the architecture, hence, achieve a dynamic equilibrium in this stable structure."

"By integrating traditional history and culture with modern and c...

Tadao Ando channels his architectural design into a watch for Bulgari

2020-01-28T11:51:00-05:00

Tadao Ando and Bulgari have unveiled the results of their collaboration of the popular Octo Finissimo Automatic watch. Working with Bulgari's Senior Director of Watch Design, Fabrizio Bonamassa Stigliani, Ando imagined a watch that could pull inspiration from concrete, a material that "has given buildings a unique personality."

The Tadao Ando × Bulgari Octo Finissimo Automatic collection utilizes titanium to compose terraced geometries, meant to capture the structural essence of architecture. Of Ando, Bonamassa said in a statement, "I went to see the church of light he worked on. The approach was the same as Octo: simple, with light and shadow, precise details. And I used titanium. We had a common language."

The world's tallest columbarium is a glitzy "hotel for the dead"

2019-06-10T15:52:00-04:00

Nestled in the mountains near the northern coastline of Taiwan, just outside of its capital, is a tower that, once full, will house the ashes of 400,000 people. At 20 stories tall, the True Dragon Tower is the biggest columbarium in the world. It’s a striking manifestation of two problems plaguing countries all around Asia—a rapidly aging population, and a lack of space for the dead in urban centers.

Cultures around the world are currently dealing with a problem unique to the 21st century: the excessive use of land to bury the dead in the past has left little more for future generations. While cremation and the spreading of ashes has long acted as a measure against leaving a permanent mark on a site, there is still a significant majority that wish for a coordinate to call their own.

Interior of the Columbarium.

In response to its own land-use crisis, the city of Taipei has developed the True Dragon Tower, a 20-story building housing over the ashes of over 400,000 people. The building type is known as a columbarium, which traditionally organized with niches for funeral urns to be stored for visitors to attend as one might visit a cemetery. Given that over 90% of Taiwan's citizens prefer cremation over burial, it is little surprise that Taiwan became the home of the world's tallest columbarium.

True Dragon Tower has been described as a "hotel for the dead" by a spokeswoman for th...

'Burst of space:' Blair Kamin reviews Tadao Ando's new Chicago art venue and Ando/Corbusier opening show

2018-10-19T13:54:00-04:00

Amid today’s polarizing political noise, Wrightwood 659 offers a comparable oasis. The building greets the visitor with a refurbished facade adorned with arches, festoons and other Beaux-Arts details. But the decorous facade turns out to be a mask. [...] Upstairs are clean-lined, contemplative galleries —“white boxes with a twist,” you might call them — filled with a trove of material about Corbusier and Ando.

Tribune architecture critic Blair Kamin shares his impressions from the opening night at Tadao Ando's new Wrightwood 659 art venue in Chicago as well as its inaugural exhibition Ando and Le Corbusier: Masters of Architecture—and the review is full of praise: "The space is so good that it compels you to set aside the contradiction of a self-professed anti-elitist architect laboring once more in the service of a wealthy man," Kamin writes.