ar321(homework5)

Ando was born in Minato-ku, Osaka, Japan, and raised in Asahi-ku in the city. He has led an eventful life, working as a truck driver and boxer prior to settling on the profession of architecture, despite never having taken formal training in the field. He visited buildings designed by renowned architects like Le Corbusier, Ludwig Mies Van der Rohe, Frank Lloyd Wright and Louis Kahn before returning to Osaka in 1968 and established his own design studio, Tadao Ando Architect and Associates.

Chikatsu-Asuka, an area in the southern part of Osaka Prefecture, has one of the best collections of tumuli (kofun) in Japan. There are over 200 mounds including four imperial tombs, the site of the tomb of Prince Shotoku and the tomb of Ono-no-Imoko. It was an important place at the start of Japanese history. The building has been conceived as a hill from which one can see the entire excavated area. The 60 meters wide and 12 meters long stone-paved roof is shaped like an enormous stairway which may be transformed into a stage, outdoor lecture hall or simply a wide viewing platform.

The building is intended as a center for exhibiting and studying the culture of the Age of Tumuli, and my proposal was to create an environmental museum that incorporates not only the Tumuli scattered around the site but the natural environment of the burial mounds.

- Phase of simplification and abstraction of emotion in the building.

- Stage attention to the materials used.

- Phase balance between aesthetics and the elements of time and space.

(1953, Clermont-Ferrand) is a French architect. He became world known for the design of the French National Library, distinguished with the Mies van der Rohe Prize in 1996. He received his Diploma in Architecture at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1978. He also holds a postgraduate diplomas in Town Planning from the Ecole supérieure des Ponts et Chaussée and History from the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences .

As an edition to the developing urban project in eastern Paris, the French National Library was built in hopes to be the most modern library in the world. The competition of 1989 that included projects from 244 internationally renowned architects was won by Dominique Perrault, who was only 36 years old. This project would be the defining design of Perrault‘s career.

Specifically designed for it’s location in the Siene Rive Gauche district, the basic concept is composed of four tall towers that define the boundaries of an esplanade, which is hollowed out of the ground to create a vast forest-garden. The four beacon-like markers with an area measuring up to 350,000 m2 were constructed on a stretch of industrial wasteland, each one comprised of wood, metal, concrete and glass.

They were designed to resemble four open books all open towards one another, to imply a volume and symbolic space. The establishment of the open square gives the notion of accessibility and availability, inviting the public to enjoy the square. It’s semi-industrial approach is obvious at every scale, particularly with the use of stainless steel. Different meshes of the steel are woven into panels to be used as coverings for walls and ceilings, as well as partitions and outdoor plantrooms. The monumental towers are draped in stainless steel, by the application of five meter high panels that are tiled to create the surfaces.

As part of an international competition, 1982-83, to revitalize the abandoned and undeveloped land from the French national wholesale meat market and slaughterhouse in Paris, France, Bernard Tschumi was chosen from over 470 entries including that of OMA/Rem Koolhaas, Zaha Hadid, and Jean Nouvel. Unlike other entries in the competition, Tschumi did not design the park in a traditional mindset where landscape and nature are the predominant forces behind the design [i.e. Central Park]. Rather he envisioned Parc de la Villette as a place of culture where natural and artificial [man-made] are forced together into a state of constant reconfiguration and discovery.