For Tadao Ando and France, It’s Been a Long Romance

Pritzker Prize-winning architect Tadao Ando established what he calls his “atelier” in 1969, and the French term is telling. Though he is based in his hometown, Osaka, Japan, and works all over the world, he has a long history in France.

In an interview earlier this month, Ando, 77, recalled that in 1965, he took the Trans-Siberian Express and made a pilgrimage to see a landmark of modernism just outside Paris, with hopes of encountering the man who designed it. “I made my way towards France in hope that I could see the Villa Savoye and meet Le Corbusier in person.”

The latter meeting didn’t happen. “Only after returning home several months later did I learn that Le Corbusier had died a few weeks before my arrival,” Ando said in an email.

Though disappointed, his love affair with France continued, and the feeling is reciprocated. Last week, the Centre Pompidou in Paris debuted, “Tadao Ando: The Challenge,” a major retrospective covering his five decades of work. The exhibition is on view through Dec. 31.

Ando said that it was his biggest museum show ever in France and noted that his first Pompidou show was in 1993.

Just two days after “The Challenge” opened in Paris, further proof of his relationship with France was newly on display in, of all places, Chicago.

Ando designed a new exhibition space there, Wrightwood 659, and the premier show is “Ando and Le Corbusier: Masters of Architecture,” on view until Dec. 15.

Ando has worked most often in Japan and relatively rarely in the United States, but he has designed a handful of significant U.S. art spaces, including the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, the Pulitzer Arts Foundation in St. Louis and an addition to the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Massachusetts.

For the first time, New Yorkers can now see his work in their city, too. His only stand-alone residential project outside Asia, the seven-story condominium 152 Elizabeth in Manhattan, was completed this year.

Self-taught in architecture and a former boxer in his youth, Ando has forged a quirky path that doesn’t look like that of any other “starchitect.”

He has become world renowned for buildings that are deeply influenced by modernism, as demonstrated by his early interest in Le Corbusier. They are also quite accessible to the public with the serene spell they cast in concrete, his signature material.

“There are two Andos,” said Frédéric Migayrou, the Pompidou curator who organized “The Challenge.” “There is the self-made man who traveled to Europe,” he said. “But he’s also an intellectual who was very close to the avant-garde movements of the 1960s.”

Bringing together many of those strands is Ando’s most often cited structure, 1989’s Ibaraki Kasugaoka Church in Ibaraki, Japan. It is better known as the Church of the Light for the dramatic way that light comes through a cruciform opening in the concrete wall behind the nave. “It’s like God coming into the church,” Migayrou said. “As a concept, it’s fabulous.”

He called the church Ando’s “masterwork,” and it has pride of place in the exhibition, too. Migayrou attached a full-scale model of the church’s facade to the south face of Pompidou itself, so that passers-by can get a taste of the architect’s work.

Migayrou offered that installation as proof that “The Challenge” was “not a traditional architecture show.”

In addition to the more typical models and drawings of buildings, “The Challenge” also displays about 30 black-and-white photographs taken by Ando, some of which are fairly abstract images of light and shadow.

“In my mind, photography and architecture share many commonalities,” Ando said. “My interests in photography stem from my friendships with many of the leading contemporary photographers of Japan.” Ando has also made friends within his own profession, including Renzo Piano, one of the few architects who shares the same level of acclaim.

In fact, Piano, a fellow Pritzker winner, designed the Pompidou itself (in the 1970s, with his then-partner Richard Rogers). Piano also attended the opening of Ando’s show there.

“Concrete is Tadao’s passion,” said Piano, a longtime student of Ando’s work. “Concrete is sober, but using light and shadow, he creates drama on its surface.”

When Piano was chosen to design an addition to the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, next door to Ando’s Modern Art Museum there, “I asked Tadao for the name of the man who makes his silky concrete,” he recalled. “And then I stole him.”

He added, “In this case, stealing was the right thing to do.”

Collector Emily Rauh Pulitzer — who commissioned Ando to design the Pulitzer Arts Foundation, at the time his first commission in the United States — said that spending time in the building since it was finished in 2001 had enriched her view of his work.

“Everyone thinks Ando works with concrete, but I think he works just as much with nature,” Pulitzer said, noting that Ando included, as he often does, a water feature in the design, as well as frequent, surprising views to the outside. “The building seems to change all the time, responding to the elements.”

Ando is emphatic that “any sacred space,” which for him includes museums, “must be related in some way to nature.” But the process of designing and getting something built is not as placid as a soft breeze rippling on a pond.

Architecture requires daily “struggle between ideals and reality,” Ando said.

“I believe that passion and willpower can triumph over these kind of obstacles,” he added. “When I was a professional boxer in my youth, I learned to train progressively harder to defeat larger and stronger opponents.”

Kulapat Yantrasast, a Los Angeles-based architect who once worked for Ando for eight years, noted some of the contradictions in his mentor’s personality.

“His work is minimalist and disciplined like a Zen monk, but he’s the opposite in person: very funny and personable,” said Yantrasast, who runs the firm wHY. “He’s so charismatic.”

He also noted the long hours that are typical at the highest levels of architecture, and he said that no one put in more time than Ando himself.

“He leads by example with his precision and determination,” Yantrasast added. “He walks the walk.”

Ando’s considerable efforts are currently being trained on the Bourse de Commerce, a project just a few blocks away from the Pompidou.

François Pinault, the billionaire art collector and Christie’s owner, is scheduled to open a contemporary art museum in the historic building next year.

Ando said he hoped it would “uphold Parisian culture for the next generation.” And he seemed to imply that doing such projects would perhaps also keep him young.

“I am 77 years old and do not plan to stop working anytime soon,” he added. “No matter your age, it is better to be an unripe green apple than a mature red apple.”