As the seventh project with Tadao Ando, amanasalto is presenting “ANDO BOX VII”, a portfolio dedicated to two renovation projects by Tadao Ando, the project of Punta della Dogana and the project of Bourse de Commerce. Beside the prints produced with amanasalto’s cutting-edge technology and artisan skills, the portfolio includes two three-dimensional models of two architectures. Through the different art mediums, the “ANDO BOX VII” brings a better understanding of the details of the two architectures as well as the “dialogue of the old and the new”, the aim of the renovation projects according to Tadao Ando.

Architecture Bridging Time

Culture flourishes from the accumulation of urban memory: the history of a collective inhabiting a certain place. Considering this, one could say that renovation – putting a hand to a structure to restore it – is far more than the simple recycling of architecture. It is an act of architectural creation in the truest sense.

In my mind’s eye, I see the pinnacle of renovation not as superficial revision or addition. I instead envision structures where the old and the new stand face to face as independent entities – where they engage in dialogue with one another. One way I seek this ideal is to painstakingly preserve the antiquated in its antiquated state, within which I insert a new space. I strive to create structures where the new nests within the old.

For this new space to function as ‘architecture within architecture,’ it must possess strength; it must be powerful enough to match the overwhelming presence of the old that envelops it. I place faith in the purity of primitive geometry, as found in the Platonic solids, as a source of such strength.

The extreme contrast between the new and the old naturally incites collision – it gives way to discord within that space. But I see no need for concern. Natural light, a being of time eternal, envelops their conflict with the hand of life; it sublimates their dynamic from one of discord to one of discourse.
And here, we see a bridging of time – from the past to the present, and into the future.

Tadao Ando