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Tadao Ando's memoir Towards Light, his first book translated into English
The 85-year-old Osaka architect and former boxer looks back on his buildings, his struggles and a life lived freely.
Before he was an architect, Tadao Ando was a professional boxer, stepping into the ring at 17 in Osaka. Speaking to Wallpaper* about his first memoir to appear in English, Towards Light, he says the two callings share one thing: both are battles in which you must overcome fear and rely on yourself. Tight budgets and awkward briefs, he explains, work the same way, forcing you to ask what is truly necessary until, in his words, 'a glimmer of light' appears.
His story is one of grit. Raised in a working-class family amid postwar Osaka, he couldn't afford university, taught himself architecture at night from books and opened a practice in a cheap rented room in 1969. Tomishima House followed in 1973, then his breakthrough, the Row House in Sumiyoshi, in 1976. The Church of Light in Ibaraki and the Children's Book Forest in Nakanoshima are among the Osaka landmarks pictured, and a Pritzker Prize came in 1995.
Ando warns that the book wanders well beyond architecture: he gave up on a tidy chronology and simply wrote where his thoughts led. Translated by Polly Barton and published by Scribe at £25, it suits anyone who loves his concrete and light, or who wants a nudge to try something new.
Our summary of a story from Wallpaper*, published 20 October 2026. Read the original
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From Wallpaper*