I’m just a big fan of books and I’m probably no different to many of you. I just like the way a good book feels and the higher quality it is, the more I enjoy it. I’m not a great reader of novels, but I can get excited about a good illustrated book or a non-fiction book. I now have quite a sizeable collection in my small studio and everyone who visits my modest studio, be it friends, family members or potential customers, likes to linger here because there is so much to discover and, without wishing to praise me, they enjoy the atmosphere and the interior design. By the way, it’s not uncommon for someone to borrow a book from me from time to time.
A few days ago, I bought two more books for my collection: the book „ANDO“ by Masao Furuyama for 15.00 €uro and the illustrated book „ATLAS-Tadao Ando“ by Philippe Séclier for 50.00 €uro. The smaller book „ANDO“ with 97 pages is about the Japanese architect Tadao Ando and his career and was written by Masao Furuyama. It is by no means an illustrated book in the classic sense, which I welcomed in this case, as I wanted to find out more about the architect and his way of thinking. Although there are many pictures and some sketches and plan drawings of his most famous and important buildings, the lavish text fields are much more important to me. So you could say that this book is more of a biography of Tadao Ando, with accompanying pictures of his career and buildings.
The second and thicker book „ATLAS by Philippe Séclier“ with 297 pages, on the other hand, is a classic illustrated book with an extremely large number of black and white photographs of Tadao Ando’s buildings. I chose this book because, firstly, I am a big fan of black and white photography and, secondly, it focuses on shapes, lines, light and shadow. Although the individual photos are rather small in size, they are still very well-made photographs. Personally, I don’t mind, as the overall impression of this book is of very high quality and the design looks very chic.
Although Tadao Ando never studied architecture and therefore never graduated as an architect, he is one of the most important architects in Japan and the world. He is also known as the father of minimalism in architecture and despite or perhaps because of his self-taught approach, his career is all the more astonishing. Alongside Zaha Hadid, he is one of the most copied architects in the 3D and ArchViz scene. His church „The Church of Light“ in Ibaraki/Osaka has already been copied by many ArchViz and 3D artists and in some cases also virtually staged using the Unreal Engine 4 & 5.
