Tadao Ando: Nature and Architecture

Today's society is increasingly oriented around information, and architecture is becoming a piece of information as well. We cannot overlook the value of architecture as information. However, there are concerns about the tendency to emphasize only one aspect of architecture and the focus on how to attract people's attention. As a result, less importance is assigned to the value of architecture as a material object and more emphasis is placed on how the dressed-up building looks in photographs. Architecture is closely tied to economics and society, and it is affected by rapid social changes. In particular, in Japan, there is a tendency to consider buildings as something that can be demolished in a few years, especially due to rising prices.
Modernism, which reached its peak in the late 1950s, began to be questioned precisely for its functionalism and economic rationalism - as the post-industrial society gave way to an information society. Various directions emerged, such as postmodernism in the narrower sense. However, postmodernism remained superficial in its goals in how nostalgically it used simplified returns to historicizing forms and ornamentation, which modernism had once rejected. It dealt only with architectural forms and did not offer real solutions to the problems that modernism encountered. Today, postmodernism is dying, in keeping with the mechanism of its own consumption. (...) The time has come to rethink modernism, which was once rejected for its notorious homogeneity, and to reconsider its main approaches to architecture. Generalizing means understanding people as quantitative units. It means that we take people with their will and feelings as "masses" and ignore their individual identity. They become nothing more than the units we measure. Generalizing in architecture once meant revealing functionality and economic rationality. Unlimited generalization threatens culture, as one of the aspects of generalization is standardization. If we allow the principles of economic rationality to be more important in architecture than cultural values, then cities around the world will consist of uniform buildings. If culture is not to be sacrificed for the progress of human civilization, then we must ask fundamental questions such as "what is architecture?" - even if they seem somewhat anachronistic. Creation in architecture is the work of individuals and takes place in the context of history, tradition, and climate. It belongs more to culture than to civilization. The creation of architecture is increasingly entrusted to organizations rather than individuals. Computers are used, and everything is quantified. The dreams and passions of individuals, which are so important in architecture, are replaced by mediocrity and conventionality.
Architecture serves not only as a mirror of the times - it must also offer criticism of the times. It represents an autonomous system of thought. To think like an architect does not just mean to deal with external conditions or solve functional problems. I am convinced that architects must be guided to ask fundamental questions, to unleash their creative imagination, to consider people, life, history, tradition, and climate. We must create architectural spaces in which a person can experience - similarly to poetry and music - surprise, discovery, intellectual stimulation, peace, and joy of life.