Church on the Water, Hokkaido, Japan

Tadao Ando

1985-89

A scaled model in wood and plexiglass of Tadao Ando’s Church on the Water that shows how the architect composes a small chapel, a reflecting pool, and a long dividing wall to choreograph views of water, light, and silence.

What strikes you first are the carved, wave-like wooden contours leading to a pale rectangular ‘pool,’ a thin wall that slices across the site, and a transparent cube perched at the water’s edge that focuses sightlines and light.

The model embodies Ando’s late-20th-century innovations—spare geometry, tactile materials, and the orchestration of landscape and light—to produce contemplative, almost liturgical spaces that reshaped contemporary architectural ideas about silence and presence.

Palette

Art Terms

Architectural model Architecture Minimalism Built environment Plastic Model Landscape

Exhibitions

Built in USA: Post-War Architecture

1953

Architecture of Museums

1968

Visionary Architecture

1960

Architecture and Imagery: Four New Buildings

1959