Product Description

Modern minimalism with a Japanese touch

Philippe Starck describes him as a "mystic in a country which is no longer mystic." Drew Philip calls his buildings "land art" that "struggle to emerge from the earth." He is the only architect to have won the discipline’s four most prestigious prizes: the Pritzker, Carlsberg, Praemium Imperiale, and Kyoto Prize. His name is Tadao Ando, and he is one of the world’s greatest living architects. Combining influences from Japanese tradition with the best of Modernism, Ando has developed a completely unique building aesthetic that makes use of concrete, wood, water, light, space, and nature in a way that has never been witnessed elsewhere in architecture.

This book provides the perfect introduction to Ando’s work, including private homes, churches, museums, apartment complexes, and cultural spaces throughout Japan, and in France, Italy, Spain, and the USA.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #161742 in Books
• Published on: 2006-10-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 96 pages

From the Publisher
Basic Architecture titles feature:
• Each title contains approximately 120 images, including photographs, sketches, drawings, and floor plans
• Introductory essays explore the architect’s life and work, touching on family and background as well as collaborations with other architects
• The body presents the most important works in chronological order, with descriptions of client and/or architect wishes, construction problems (why some projects were never executed), and resolutions
• The appendix includes a list of complete or selected works, biography, bibliography and a map indicating the locations of the architect’s most famous buildings

About the Author
Masao Furuyama studied architecture at Kyoto University and received his doctorate in urban engineering from Tokyo University. He has taught at the Kyoto Institute of Technology, where he has been Vice-President since 2004, and published on the subjects of architecture and Tadao Ando.

Customer Reviews

Another Great Book from Taschen
This is the first Taschen Basic Architecture volume about a living architect. The earlier Taschen volumes have been about the Modernist masters such as Mies, Le Corbusier, Loos, Wright, Kahn and Neutra. If there is any living architect who can measure up to this Pantheon of Greats, it is Pritzker Prize winner, Tadao Ando.

Like the other volumes in this series, there is a short biographical essay, followed by short chapters that focus on key works. The German Publishing Company Taschen publishes some of the best architectural books. Their books are always of the highest quality and reasonably priced. At Ten Dollars, it is hard to imagine a better introduction to the works of one of the most important architects of the Twentieth Century. Highly recommended.

worth buying
this books introduce lots of important works of Tadao Ando
good print quality, nice pictures with reasonable price