Yale Bulletin and Calendar

October 5, 2001

Volume 30, Number 5

Tadao Ando

Renowned architect Tadao Ando
is year's first Chubb Fellow

Architect Tadao Ando will be the first Chubb Fellow of the 2001-2002 academic year at Yale University.

Ando will present a free public lecture at 6 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 11, in Hastings Hall, 180 York St. A reception will follow in the School of Architecture's second-floor gallery.

Winner of the 1995 Pritzker Prize -- considered the highest award within the profession of architecture -- Ando is a self-educated architect. He established his firm in 1969 and since then has earned a reputation as a cultural force throughout the world, combining Japanese aesthetic tradition with international Modernism. His style has been called "powerful and restrained ... sensual and reserved," by Paul Goldberger of The New York Times.

Ando's work, primarily in reinforced concrete, steel and glass, defines spaces in ways that allow changing patterns of light and wind in all his structures, from homes and apartment complexes to places of worship, museums and shopping centers. Ando uses concrete as both structure and surface, shaping the liquid material in varnished wooden forms to achieve a silk-smooth finish.

"For me, making architecture is the same as thinking," Ando has said. On another occasion, he remarked, "In all my works, light is an important controlling factor. I create enclosed spaces mainly by means of thick concrete walls. The primary reason is to create a place for the individual, a zone for oneself within society."

Ando first won widespread recognition for his work with the completion of Row House, Sumiyoshi (Azuma), in Osaka, which won the Architectural Institute of Japan's Annual Prize in 1979. Among his other works are the Church of the Light (1989) and Suntory Museum (1994), both in Osaka; the Museum of Literature (1991) in Hyogo and the Water Temple (1991) on Awaji Island; the Meditation Space in UNESCO offices, Paris (1995); and the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts in St. Louis, Missouri (2001).

Ando's awards include the 1997 Royal Gold Medal from the Royal Institute of British Architects, the Gold Medal of the French Academy, plus numerous other honors from Finland, Great Britain and the United States. He has won virtually every art and architecture prize Japan can bestow.

The Chubb Fellowship is devoted to encouraging and aiding Yale students interested in the operations of government and in public service. Established in 1936 through the generosity of Hendon Chubb (Yale 1895), the program is based in Timothy Dwight College, one of Yale's residential colleges. Each year four or five distinguished men and women have been appointed as Visiting Chubb Fellows. Chubb Fellows spend several days at Yale in close, informal contact with students, and deliver a public lecture. Among former Chubb Fellows have been international heads of state Fernando Collor de Mello of Brazil and Shimon Peres of Israel; Presidents George H. Bush, Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter; and authors Norman Mailer and Octavio Paz.

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Campus Notes