Quotes By Tadao Ando

In the West there has always been the attempt to try make the religious building, whether it's a Medieval or Renaissance church, an eternal object for the celebration of God. The material chosen, such as stone, brick, or concrete, is meant to eternally preserve what is inside.

In Japan, there is less a culture of preserving old buildings than in Europe.

When I design buildings, I think of the overall composition, much as the parts of a body would fit together. On top of that, I think about how people will approach the building and experience that space.

I believe that the way people live can be directed a little by architecture.

Spiritual space is lost in gaining convenience. I saw the need to create a mixture of Japanese spiritual culture and modern western architecture.

But in Japan, there's nothing like that, since the temple is made of wood. The divine spirit inside the building is eternal, so the enclosure doesn't have to be.

But now, more and more, its society is concerned with economy and finance.

I am interested in things happening around me, and I need to understand what's going on in other artistic sectors like music and literature.

You can't really say what is beautiful about a place, but the image of the place will remain vividly with you.

Japanese traditional architecture is created based on these conditions. This is the reason you have a very high degree of connection between the outside and inside in architecture.

I think of the past and the future as well as the present to determine where I am, and I move on while thinking of these things.

At the same time, I would add that the American people have a lot of courage.

In Italy, there are so many significant architectural structures in history such as the Pantheon in Rome, or the Duomo.

My hand is the extension of the thinking process - the creative process.

Japanese architecture is traditionally based on wooden structures that need renovating on a regular basis.

When I draw something, the brain and the hands work together.

The computer offers another kind of creativity. You cannot ignore the creativity that computer technology can bring. But you need to be able to move between those two different worlds.

You cannot simply put something new into a place. You have to absorb what you see around you, what exists on the land, and then use that knowledge along with contemporary thinking to interpret what you see.

All those involved in the construction of an architectural design, from the architect to the builder, have an attachment to the architecture, although it's difficult to quantify the attachment.

I would like my architecture to inspire people to use their own resources, to move into the future.

I hope that America as a whole, and especially its architects, will become more seriously involved in producing a new architectural culture that would bring the nation to the apex - where it has stood before - and lead the world.

If I can create some space that people haven't experienced before and if it stays with them or gives them a dream for the future, that's the kind of structure I seek to create.

Italy is full of historical buildings. And Europe holds a great history of philosophy from Greece until today. I read all those books and see these buildings, and I think of where I stand when I design my architecture.

People tend not to use this word beauty because it's not intellectual - but there has to be an overlap between beauty and intellect.

Without this spirit, Modernist architecture cannot fully exist. Since there is often a mismatch between the logic and the spirit of Modernism, I use architecture to reconcile the two.

Working in Tokyo has convinced me that, contrary to what people think, it is actually one of the world's most beautiful cities.

I hope America can also be the cultural leader of the world, and use this frontier spirit to lead and show others that we need courage to go places where we have not gone before.

The level of detail and craft is something that's inscribed within the original design concept. And so when I begin to draw, I know what kind of detailing I want the building to have.

If you give people nothingness, they can ponder what can be achieved from that nothingness.

You always want to try to make something new, and, of course, America is the world leader in economics today.