Concrete Nature:
Space & light in Tadao Ando's Architecture
A book designed and hand-bound as an extension of Tadao Ando’s architectural philosophy, with Chichu Art Museum serving as a central reference. Through typographic experimentation and structural design, the book draws inspiration from how viewers move through the museum—its forms, spatial sequences, and dialogue with light and nature—translating Ando’s approach to space, material, and experience into a tactile, narrative object.
Inspired by the gradual, ritualized unfolding of the Chichu Art Museum, the book invites readers to physically unfold its pages, echoing the spatial experience of moving through the architecture. Subtle page cuts reveal partial glimpses of what lies ahead, mirroring the slits and cracks in Chichu’s concrete walls that guide light, movement, and anticipation.
Typography is treated as architecture. Drawing from Ando’s use of slits, cuts, and geometric framing of light, space and perception, type is intentionally interrupted and reshaped into variations of form. Through the integration of typography with shapes and imagery, the design creates a visual choreography that reflects Ando’s philosophy—where form, structure, and environment exist in quiet dialogue.
Aligning content with the folds, binding the pages so that the folds could work and make senses; along with choosing the right paper so multiple folds wouldn’t be too thick and leave creases are such a challenge but the result is a rewarding physical objects that attribute to Ando's architecture and philosophy.
