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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.
— Quartz
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... View full entry
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.
— Chicago Tribune
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... View full entry
Chicago's Lincoln Park neighborhood is getting an exciting new art place, and it's been designed by none other than Tadao Ando. Wrightwood 659 is a major transformation of a historic building from the 1920s and will be dedicated to exhibitions on architecture and on socially engaged art. © Jeff... View full entry
Pritzker Prize-winning Japanese Architect Tadao Ando's first residential development in NYC and outside Asia, 152 Elizabeth Street, has just sold its highly anticipated duplex penthouse for $35 million. The 9,000-square-feet penthouse spans three floors and features a 4 bedroom, 4.5 bath home... View full entry
While Tadao Ando has built religious structures before--famously, the Church of the Light--he has rarely worked with figurative icons of religion, preferring a more abstract approach. This has changed with his open-air prayer hall in the Makomanai Takinoreien Cemetery in Sapporo, Japan, where a... View full entry
Mr. Ando plans to build a circular structure with three levels of galleries inside the round building, which is bound by strict historic preservation norms. It will have 32,000 square feet of exhibition space and an underground auditorium. The museum, which will only showcase contemporary art — including pieces from Mr. Pinault’s collection of more than 3,000 works — will be renovated and run by his family’s company... — The New York Times
Photo: © Artefactory Lab; Tadao Ando Architect & Associates; NeM / Niney & Marca Architects; Agency Pierre-Antoine Gatier / Courtesy of Collection PinaultIs this the first time a former stock exchange has been transformed into a museum? Either way, the new design should be open to the... View full entry
Although plans to tear down Tadao Ando's Piccadilly Gardens have been floating about since last late last year, the Manchester City Council just gave its official approval to knock down Ando's quasi-Brutalist structure in favor of a "leisure-led" scheme last week, according to the Architects... View full entry
This should be Ando’s residence. But there is no bedroom. Or food in the kitchen. And a couple of years ago he told Japanese TV that he lives in a normal apartment. This is Tadao Ando’s house, but is it his home? [...]
Ando built it to be his home in 1995 but never moved in. You can find it listed in architecture books as the “Atelier” or “Studio Annexe”. “I wanted a fun place to live, a place where every day is thrilling, a quiet place to think,” he says.
— ft.com
Ando, on the ultimate home, to Robin Harding for the Financial Times: “Please write this,” he says. “A church is a home town for the spirit, a place where the spirit lives. Big or small. It’s the home of the spirit so when you go there you feel relief. You feel the... View full entry
Whatever canvas he is given, whether it's a highly constrained urban lot or a sweeping New Mexico landscape, Tadao Ando rarely falters. Cerro Pelon Ranch, the two compounds he designed for former architectural student turned fashion maven/filmmaker Tom Ford, is no exception.Enormous... View full entry
As luxury condominiums go, 152 Elizabeth Street displays an unusual rigor and finesse: this is not an exercise in overindulgence, but in refined balance. With its 32,000 square feet split between seven individual residences, Tadao Ando's floor-to-celling windowed, burnished... View full entry
The Noguchi Museum in New York announced the one and only Tadao Ando and artist Elyn Zimmerman as the 2016 recipients of the Isamu Noguchi Award. Established in 2014, the award recognizes individuals whose work conveys collaborative, multi-disciplinary, and innovative qualities like that of... View full entry
According to a statement issued on Zaha Hadid's website, the project-ending cost of the New National Stadium is not the fault of the design, but rather the "inflated costs of construction in Tokyo, a restricted and uncompetitive approach to appointing construction contractors, and a restriction on... View full entry
World-famous architect Tadao Ando was astonished to learn that the design he chose for the new National Stadium would cost ¥252 billion to build, he said at a press conference Thursday, where he spoke for the first time since the swelling cost became an issue. — The Japan News
According to Reuters, the massive ballooning in the construction costs of Zaha Hadid's relatively unpopular proposed design for Japan's National Stadium are not the fault of the chairman of the design committee, Tadao Ando: "Soaring construction and labor costs, along with a rise in Japan's... View full entry
Amelia Taylor-Hochberg penned What makes an artless museum?, which reviewed the February Sky-lit event/preview of the new Broad Museum. Therein she argues that it provided "an opportunity for the architecture to be treated as a relational art object, but not so it could be handled with velvet... View full entry
Easily the biggest news of last week, and probably of this year, was the unveiling of BIG's design for 2WTC. For a project of such status, on such a highly charged site, representation must be handled with expert care – so to dig a bit deeper into the splashy video introducing 2WTC, we spoke... View full entry
