Tadao Ando Documentary

Swedish Television aired a Tadao Ando documentary recently.¹ Quite interesting, but left me wondering things about his process.

For instance, it was said that the Japanese architect has a staff of 25, which somehow manages to keep 30 concurrent projects going. Few further clues as to how this works, except that each project has its responsible staffer (so some are responsible of more than one).

Another thing was how at a project’s conception – or at least this was the case for a project featured in the documentary of building a new temple (Shintoist?) to replace one damaged in an earthquake² – all 25 contribute with proposals (models), which are then critiqued by Ando. What I wanted to know is which directions he gave to his staff.

I liked this way of doing things. I would guess that Ando described his ideas from meeting the client and visiting the site, so this process becomes: sow 25 seeds, watch them grow, select a few (he chose two proposals) and evolve the idea based on those.

Another thing with frustratingly few further clues: Ando says he only spends 24 hours in getting an idea. He described it as a total immersion, and he seemed to particularly like this stage of a project. But does he do this in seclusion? Does he draw sketches? Or is he simply picturing it in his head.

In the case of the temple, this 24 hours did by no means leave him with a clear idea. As he studied the 25 proposals from his staff, he was surely still thinking. The models presented surely looked to have taken more than 24 hours to make. For instance, already at the site, Ando was determined to use another approach for the roof than was commonly the case for such temples; he said they usually conveyed authority; he wanted his to convey peace, tranquility. But it wasn’t until studying the models that his picture of the roof began to crystallize.

I really liked those of his buildings which were featured in the documentary. Flickr has surprisingly many photos tagged with his name I wanted to post one along with these notes, but none of those I liked were CC licensed.

¹ “Ett uppdrag för Tadao Ando”, K special, July 22, 2005.

² No clue as to whether this one was built. I haven’t been able to find anything on it.