Overview

Tadao Ando, one-time truck driver and boxer, is a self-taught Japanese architect whose winning of the 1995 Pritzker Prize has given him preeminence among his gifted generation. Ando reinvents Japan's architectural tradition in contemporary terms, using minimalist concrete structures of monumental scale, reminiscent of the Brutalist architecture of America's Louis Kahn. Editor Francesco Dal Co, an Italian architectural historian, has produced an excellent survey of Ando's career to date, along with a critical assessment of his work.