Quotes from Tadao Ando

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

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.

I don't believe architecture has to speak too much. It should remain silent and let nature in the guise of sunlight and wind

We borrow from nature the space upon which we build.

All architecture has a public nature, I believe, so I would like to make a public space.

It wasn't that I had any great dream of being an architect. I just wanted to make things. Whether it was furniture, painting, interior design, or architecture. I just wanted to create something.

I believe that architecture is fundamentally a public space where people can gather and communicate, think about the history, think about the lives of human beings, or the world.

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.

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

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

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.

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

Since I am a Japanese man who's been building through the experience of Japanese architecture, my actual designs come from Japanese architectural concepts, although they're based on Western methods and materials.

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

If there is only one culture all over the world, that's not a good thing.

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

I think architecture becomes interesting when it has a double character, that is, when it is as simple as possible but, at the same time as complex as possible

There is a role and function for beauty in our time.

I don't look so closely at women's fashion, but from the 20th century on, people have had the freedom to express themselves and their individualities, and fashion is one of the most fundamental ways in which they do this, men and women are equally able to express themselves.

The speed of change makes you wonder what will become of 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.

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

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

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