archi-tecture
Tadao Ando (安藤 忠雄 Andō Tadao, born September 13, 1941, in Minato-ku, Osaka, Japan and raised in Asahi-ku in the city) is a Japanese architect. 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. He works primarily in exposed cast-in-place concrete and is renowned for an exemplary craftsmanship which invokes a Japanese sense of materiality, junction and spatial narrative through the pared aesthetics of international modernism.
Villa Tantangan, By Word Of Mouth- Bali
A private and secluded beach on the west coast of Bali. It has been constructed on 6,500 square metres of land, which overlooks the Indian Ocean to the west and a natural river system to the north. The Villa also has views across to the local beach temple and views to the volcanoes in the distance, creating a special connection between the architecture and its place. As a result, the design followed the concept of creating a ‘Landscaped Architecture’ which became important in the physical connection of the natural and built environments.
The design utilises a layout whereby the buildings are formed around the central courtyard, creating intimate internal spaces between the buildings, and more open spaces towards the perimeter. The buildings are situated on different levels of the land and are treated like giant planter boxes, each with a roof landscaped by either natural vegetation or ponds. The end result is what was termed “Landscaped Architecture”, in which the boundaries between the natural and the built become blurred, allowing the architecture not only to sit on the land, but actually to become part of it. (More info at the end of the post).
This palace was hand built by postman Ferdinand Cheval. It took him 33 years to build and he calls it Palais ideal. It is a great reminder that a person can do anything with sufficient passion, effort, and time.
He began working on it in 1867 when he was 13 years old after tripping over a bazaar shaped stone and marveling at it. It was completed in the 1970’s. The palace is more than 30 feet (10 meters) high and 85 feet (26 meters) long.
Lagunitas_CA_Bernard Trainor and Associates
