Born in 1941, Tadao Ando left an early career as a boxer to pursue architecture, an interest he had developed after visiting Frank Lloyd Wright’s Imperial Hotel in Tokyo. Never formally trained as an architect, Ando attended night classes in drafting and visited buildings by Louis Kahn, Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe before establishing his studio in Osaka in 1968. One of his early projects, Row House in Sumiyoshi (1976), displayed many of the characteristics that would define Ando’s career: the use of off-form in-situ concrete, a deliberate focus on natural light and controlled internal space, and a keen interest in circulation and movement. Other notable buildings are the Church of Light in Osaka (1989), Chichu Art Museum on Naoshima Island (2004), 2121 Design Sight in Tokyo (2007), and the 10th MPavilion in Melbourne (2023). Tadao Ando was awarded the Pritzker Prize for architecture in 1995 and continues to practice today.