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.

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

Tadao Ando on 'Youth' and optimism for museum design