TADAO ANDO Architect: Tadao Ando

Built in: 1975-1976

Land Area: 57 m2
Floor Area: 34 m2
Built-up Area: 65 m2
Location: Sumiyoshi, Osaka,

Born 13 September 1941 (age 81)

Minato-ku, Osaka, Japan
Nationality Japanese
Occupation Architect
Awards Alvar Aalto Medal, 1985
Carlsberg Architectural Prize, 1992
Pritzker Prize, 1995
RIBA Royal Gold Medal, 1997
AIA Gold Medal, 2002
Neutra Medal for Professional
Excellence, 2012
Practice Tadao Ando Architects &
Associates ROW HOUSE
Azuma House developed a theme of design, but also a social theme. Tadao Ando present-
ed a cement box in the middle of a row of dilapidated wooden houses, of which there
are masses in the central areas of Osaka, and created a highly self-sufficient living space
within that box. Guaranteeing individual privacy (something which the traditional houses
did not provide) and creating a residential space which allowed for the
development of modern individuals. It is an expression of the belief that Ando had, that the
home is exactly the construction which can change society

The austere façade, whose only decoration is the appearance of the exposed concrete
(a detail which would become a signature of Ando's works) presents us with an axially
symmetrical composition with an entrance in its centre. There are only two rectangu-
lar forms used by the architect in its elevation: the general outline of the building and the
entranceway.

The totality of the austere space has been divided longitudinally in three parts:
two interior, closed spaces of equal size which contain the living area, kitchen and
bathroom on the lower floor and bedroom and study on the upper floor, at once
separated and united by the open-air patio. This three-way partition is applied to the
building as a whole and echoes the long-short-long pattern of the façade, that is: wall-en-
tranceway-wall.
 MIQUEL
BARCELO

Neo-Expressionist Miquel Barceló makes

abstract, mixed-media paintings that
capture the diversity of the natural world
and reflect his extensive travels. Like
Pablo Picasso and Francisco de Goya
before him, the artist pushes the
boundaries of representation. His hazy
white canvases, for example, capture
the light rebounding off the Sahara. On
a canvas installed at the United Nations
headquarters, a multicolored dome of
stalactite forms evokes the sea and a
cave.
Born: 8 January 1957 (age 66 years),
Felanitx, Spain
Nationality: Spanish
Spouse: Cécile Franken (m. 1992)
Children: Marcel·la Barceló, Joaquim Bar-
celó
Parents: Francisca Artigues, Miquel Barceló
Gelavert
Awards: Princess of Asturias Award for the
Arts, Creu de Sant Jordi
 Tres Puertas is a powerfully evocative portrait of an inimitable and timeless event. The
title Tres Puertas, together with the three black circles along the irregular bottom
edge, references three gates into the arena of the plaza del toros, which typically include
one for the entry of the parade into the arena; one via which the bull enters; another
that is used by the picadors and through which a triumphant matador may be carried
into the streets beyond; and one for the mule teams to drag out the dead bull's carcass
(Gary Marvin, Bullfight, Oxford 1994, p. 11). The symbolism of three also connotes the
three stages, or tercios, of the bullfight, respectively termed the tercio de varas; ter-
cio de banderillas; and tercio de muerte. It is this final stage, the 'third of death', that is
depicted in Barceló's painting, where the matador, holding the small red muleta cape,
delivers the fatal blow with his sword.

TRES
PUERTAS

Miquel Barceló's exceptionally sculptural Tres Puertas is an exquisite archetype of the artist's
most esteemed corpus, the Toros series. Palpably projecting towards the viewer in three-di-
mensions, the dramatic topography of this work emphatically heightens the focus and sense
of event of the bullfight or Corrida. With the banks of spectators designated by circling
swathes of paint material, the stark silhouette of matador and bull strike an especially cli-
mactic spectacle, casting long shadows in the dying sun at the end of their epic strug-
gle. The accentuated fluctuation of the physical surface throws a schema of ever-changing
shadows across the painting, which alters with our moving perspective and creates a sense
of dynamism suggestive of the crowd's frenzied excitement. A singularly intense and con-
centrated interpretation of a subject that famously transfixed artists from Goya and Manet
to Picasso and Bacon,