Tadao Ando

Tadao Ando GA Architecture 12 VOL. 2 1988-1993 This book talks about Tadao Ando’s projects in a chronological order, the publication mainly works with photographs and overview drawings, but they have a lack of detail drawings and some landscape sketches.
His designs have this very specific style that is unique in a different sense than his western colleagues, his raw usage of concrete in the 90is a very clear architectural language that was only beginning to develop with other practices. He has a dialogue between everything that surrounded his projects, he liked the idea of having open spaces for people to gather around to chat, talk or even better exchange opinions or ideas like the plazas in the ancient Greeks.
His way of dialogue is not easy to understand cause of the variety he always includes with opposites or “extremes” such as light/shadow, East/West or the colors given by the nature these can only be felted or seen for the human but he had other ways of dialogue that would be nature with people, architecture with nature, people with architecture, people with people and it could also be with himself like a way of conscience.

This architect never cared about the size of his projects they could be a 4×4 house or a huge museum in a far away forest, the only thing he cared about was to synchronize the harmony for every living thing or object (in this case his architectures) inside or outside the structure to live together in peace and for the humanity to enjoy the spaces given to them. One of my favorite works in this book is the Miyashita House in Kobe, Hyogo.
This house has three stories all of them organized with different purposes, a studio and master room are in the lower ground, middle section has the dining room where it has a beautiful well-made spiral staircase leading up to a bedroom and continues up to an astronomical observatory, I think this idea is amazing having a house like this to enjoy yourself the wonders of the sky.
This structure is rectangular with a semi triangle on its side, it has lots of opened space and huge windows for the sunlight to light up inside, all the walls are made of reinforced concrete masonry and this architecture is surrounded by nature with an incredible view overlooking West Kobe and the Inland sea of Japan.