Architect Drawings : A Selection of Sketches by World Famous Architects Through History

Ando, Tadao (1941)
Preliminary design sketch, light slit on the altar, 1987, Church of the Light, Ibaraki,
Osaka, Japan, 11.7 8.5in., Felt pen on Japanese paper (washi)
Self-educated, Tadao Ando is one of the most widely regarded architects currently working in Japan.
He was born in Osaka, Japan, in 1941, where he established his architectural office, Tadao Ando
Architect & Associates. Through his career he has won numerous awards for design, including the
Pritzker Architecture Prize (1995), the Royal Gold Medal from the Royal Institute of British
Architects (1997), and the Person of Cultural Merit (2003). He has taught in several universities
including visiting at Yale University, Columbia University, and Harvard University, and he holds a
professorship at Tokyo University. A few of his best known works include: Rokko Housing I, Kobe
(1983); Water Temple, Awaji Island (1991); FABRICA Benetton Communications Research Center,
Treviso (2000); and Sayamaike Historical Museum, Osaka (2001). 2
This page (Figure 8.2) displays preliminary sketches for the Church of the Light in Ibaraki,
Osaka, Japan. It was designed in 1987–1988, and underwent construction during 1988 –1989.
It consists of a rectangular volume sliced through at a fifteen-degree angle by a completely
freestanding wall that separates the entrance from the chapel. Light penetrates the profound
darkness of this box through a cross which is cut out of the altar wall. The floor and
pews are made of rough scaffolding planks, which are low cost and also ultimately suited to
the character of the space. I have always used natural materials for parts of a building that
come into contact with people’s hands or feet, as I am convinced that materials having substance,
such as wood or concrete, are invaluable for building, and that it is essentially
through our senses that we become aware of architecture. … [O]penings have been limited
in this space, for light shows its brilliance only against a backdrop of darkness. Nature’s
presence is also limited to the element of light and is rendered exceedingly abstract. In
responding to such an abstraction, the architecture grows continually purer. The linear
pattern formed on the floor by rays from the sun and a migrating cross of light expresses
with purity man’s relationship with nature.
The sketch has been rendered with black ink on heavy ( Japanese) paper. The black ink is very
dense in places (such as the crosses), while in other areas it skips off of the heavy paper in haste. The
ink shows strong contrast to the white paper and is very definitive. Architects, artists, and authors have
feared the blank page because the first stroke sets the stage for what comes after: the entirely white
paper can be intimidating. The blank sheet expects something profound, and any marks stand out
strongly in the vast whiteness. Ando does not erase or scratch out any images, but he finds a blank
space in which to draw. He sketches confidently, allowing the forms to overlap as his ideas flow.
The page contains several sketches in plan and axonometric. One small sketch appears to be a plan
for the organization of the pews in the chapel or the processional movement, a rectangle with many
horizontals. The shaded sketches are details showing the thickness of the walls and how the light
would glow through the cross opening. The ink used to make the crosses creates a reversal; the wall
was meant to be dark and the cross glowing with light.
The minimal forms tell the story of a conceptually strong approach to the light in a small chapel.
In writing about the importance of sketches in design process, Ando writes: ‘my sketch[es] usually
help me to clear and refine the initial image and to integrate it with architectural space and details.’
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