Tadao Ando is celebrating his 70th birthday

The legend of the Japanese minimalist scene is celebrating its seventieth birthday these days. Young Ando, who grew up with his grandmother in Osaka after World War II, left his career as a boxer and truck driver to make a living as a carpenter. At the age of fifteen, when he first came across a monograph about Le Corbusier, he became fully interested in architecture. In addition to book publications, the self-taught Ando learned the most from direct confrontation with buildings. At the end of the 1960s, he founded his own architectural office and since then has built over two hundred buildings made of exposed concrete around the world. Among his first international projects was the conference center for Vitra (1993), after which Ando received countless commissions and recognition from all over the world. Following the award of the Pritzker Prize (1995) and the prestigious Japanese Praemium Imperiale award (1996), he received gold medals from all the major architectural associations (1997 RIBA, 2002 AIA, 2005 UIA).
In Ando's family houses and museums, visitors can experience a meditative intimate atmosphere, which he perfected in sacred buildings at the beginning of his professional career. The unmistakable handwriting of Ando's buildings is emphasized by the use of panel formwork measuring 90 x 180 cm with a characteristic six openings for concrete spacers. The overall mastery is then crowned by the sensitive placement of his buildings into the landscape and the unique handling of daylight.