Japanese star architect Tadao Ando sings of youth through evergreen apple

After walking through the imposing archway designed by Alexander Liberman, visitors to Museum SAN in Wonju, Gangwon Province, are greeted with "Youth," a three-meter-tall green apple sculpture designed by celebrated Japanese architect Tadao Ando in time for the opening of his retrospective of the same name. While the exhibition has toured six different cities around the world before coming to Korea, this is the first show to unfold at a building that Ando himself designed 10 years ago. Yonhap

Ando's touring retrospective, "Youth," on view at Museum SAN as the first show held at a building he designed

By Park Han-sol

WONJU, Gangwon Province ― Even after losing five of his organs to cancer, Tadao Ando still burns with a youthful zest for life.

The 81-year-old architect's mammoth apple sculpture, now greeting art lovers at Museum SAN with its evergreen surface, is his way of extolling the virtues of youth "to which everyone, regardless of age, is entitled as long as they are alive."

Only after walking past this gleaming three-meter-tall piece of fruit can visitors enter the Pritzker Prize-winning creator's major retrospective ― aptly titled "Youth" ― unfurled at the sprawling museum atop a lush mountain in Wonju, Gangwon Province. While the exhibition has toured six different cities around the world before coming to Korea, this is the first show to unfold at a building that Ando himself designed 10 years ago.

"This exhibition spanning five decades of his career is therefore not just confined to the indoor space," said Noh Eun-sil, the curator behind the show.

His Zen-inspired architectural philosophy, which marries minimalist modernism with profound spirituality, reverberates far beyond the gallery walls and can be felt everywhere ― in the museum's geometric courtyards, reflective pools, stone gardens and a meditation dome.

Pritzker Prize-winning architect Tadao Ando speaks during a press conference held at Museum SAN, March 31. Newsis

Ando challenged the credential-obsessed Japanese society in the late 1960s with an unusual career trajectory: a pro-boxer-turned-architect with no formal training.

He developed his creative passion outside academia, notably through intense reading and trips to Europe via the Trans-Siberian Express where he witnessed in person the architectural feats of modernism ― including the tours de force of Le Corbusier.

The Swiss-French Purist came to have a profound impact on the self-taught Japanese architect ― namely, his love affair with concrete. (Ando also famously paid tribute to the European creator in a more personal way when he named his pet dog Le Corbusier.)

Since its invention in the mid-19th century, concrete has become a telling symbol of the modern industrial era. "It's a material that anyone can purchase and use nowadays. With such an easy-to-access medium, I wanted to build something that no other could," Ando noted at the press preview held on a cloudless March afternoon at the museum.

It was a slow start for the young Japanese architect when he first opened his "atelier" in 1969. For the first decade, hardly any clients knocked on the door of his studio. Those that did came with projects with tight budgets and narrow lots.

But these challenges were ultimately what pushed him to establish his signature vocabulary that celebrates the values of simplicity and understated grace through a striking mix of exposed concrete, light and surrounding natural landscape.

The Church of the Light in Osaka, Japan (1987-1989). Photo by Mitsuo Matsuoka / Courtesy of Tadao Ando Architect & Associates

"Youth," an extensive survey of his 50 years of works that were brought to life in his native Japan, Korea, the United States, Italy and France, presents through original sketches, blueprints, models and videos the major structures that made Ando a household name.

One of his most cited projects is Ibaraki Kasugaoka Church in Japan's Osaka, better known as the Church of the Light. Here, the light can only come through a cross-shaped slit on the concrete wall to illuminate the otherwise pitch-dark chapel. With all its simplicity, the cruciform glow that appears behind the altar transforms the interior into a profoundly sublime space.

Such a spiritual encounter continues in the Hill of the Buddha nestled in a shrine in Hokkaido's cemetery. To highlight the imposing presence of the 13.5-meter-tall Buddhist statue, the architect once again does something beyond imagination ― that is, burying the monument in an artificial hill covered in lavender, with only the top of its head peeking out.

The colossal statue now only reveals itself to visitors who choose to approach it through a 40-meter tunnel and lift their gaze. Ando's design turns the whole viewing experience into a majestic spectacle.

Hill of the Buddha in Hokkaido, Japan (2012-2015). Photo by Shigeo Ogawa / Courtesy of Tadao Ando Architect & Associates

The exhibition also dedicates a section to the architect's longest-running project on Naoshima in Japan's Seto Inland Sea.

It was in the mid-1980s when he was invited to add an "Andoian" twist to the nearly barren island with a population of 3,000.

Over the next three decades, the remote island's fate slowly began to change as he designed one unusual building after another ― Benesse House Museum, Chichu Art Museum, Lee Ufan Museum, Ando Museum, Valley Gallery, among others ― with many buried underground and exposed only to natural lighting.

Chichu Art Museum on Naoshima (2000-2004) / Courtesy of Tadao Ando Architect & Associates

The concrete structures organically intertwined with the surrounding environment and Yayoi Kusama's iconic polka-dotted pumpkin installed at the end of a pier (a new version after the first got swept away in a typhoon in 2021) have transformed Naoshima into an island of art that draws in as many as 800,000 tourists a year.

"If you make a museum that can only exist there, people are bound to come from all corners of the globe," Ando noted. "And when you give birth to a child, you have to raise them. It is the same with museums. After you build it, you must let it grow with you."

But not every piece on display is a success story. Being a star architect means being all too familiar with the taste of rejection and failure as well.

He does not back away from putting on view the ideas that were never realized ― and therefore survive only in the form of sketches and blueprints.

In the late 1980s, he submitted a proposal for the renovation of the Osaka City Central Public Hall, where he boldly suggested that an egg-shaped concrete hall be inserted inside the orange Neo-Renaissance architecture built in 1918 ― so that the past and the present can be in dialogue, quite literally.

The result was a flat no from the city administration.

"The more interesting an idea is, the more people say no to it at first," the architect said. "So I'm never bothered by rejections. They just push me to look for ways to bring my vision to life somewhere else."

Nakanoshima Project II ― Urban Egg (proposal) (1989) / Courtesy of Tadao Ando Architect & Associates

Bourse de Commerce in Paris, France (2016-2021). Photo by Yuji Ono / Courtesy of Tadao Ando Architect & Associates

And years later, he did indeed. The Punta della Dogana in Venice and the Bourse de Commerce in Paris both embody his idea of inserting a new structure inside the old while retaining the original framework.

The 17th-century customs house in Venice now has a concrete cube to exhibit contemporary masterpieces. Inside the 16th-century historical monument in Paris, one can see the concrete cylinder with a diameter of 30 meters occupying the grand rotunda as a minimal display area.

"If you cherish and hold onto your ideas long enough, they will materialize one day in whatever way possible. And if you want to see that happen, you must live long ― and stay youthful," Ando said, laughing and reminding the reporters of his green apple once again.

Like American poet Samuel Ullman's words about youth that became an inspiration behind the fruit sculpture ― "Youth is not a time of life; it is a state of mind… it is a matter of the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions" ― the 81-year-old vows to keep his youthful spirit alive for as long as he can.

This year, the Japanese architect is building the second meditation hall named The Space of Light at Museum SAN. A new children's library designed by him will be completed in the coming months in Bangladesh. And his team is working to bring to life a community-based art museum on Naoshima as yet another addition to the island's cultural fabric.

"Not so long ago, I got to have a conversation with heaven. They'll actually let me live for another 20 years or so," he said, rather jovially. "So, I have another two decades to design buildings that can bring hope to people."

"Tadao Ando: Youth" runs through July 30 at Museum SAN.

Tadao Ando's "Youth" installed at the entrance of Museum SAN's gallery / Korea Times photo by Park Han-sol