Towards Light

A Philosophy of Life and Architecture

Tadao Ando’s architectural memoir: an artistic treatise on work, creativity, and learning how to endure.

Tadao Ando is one of the most celebrated architects of our time. Winner of the Pritzker Prize and numerous other international awards, his bold, concrete buildings and their interplay with light, shadow, and nature have become emblematic symbols of the modern world, blending modernist design with Eastern spirituality from his native Japan.

Now, at eighty-five, Ando looks back on a lifetime of making. Born in a working-class family living amongst the ruins of postwar Osaka, he could not afford a university education. After a brief stint as a professional boxer, he taught himself architecture at night from books, founded a practice in a cheap rented room, and, after years of uncertainty, persistence, and belief, eventually saw his ‘concrete poetry’ built around the world.

Towards Light, Ando’s first through-written book to be translated into English, explores the stories behind his greatest buildings and shares wisdom drawn from pivotal moments in Ando’s life. Ando is a guide to both the granular demands of creative work — clients, budgets, and the importance of using your own tools — and the exhilaration of inspiration, the power of art and music to spark new ideas, and how to keep the imagination open.

Towards Light is a grounded guide to a creative life as it is actually lived, for anyone committed to their work and to the long process of creating something meaningful.

Contributor: Polly Barton (Translated by)

Translator: Polly Barton

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