Sunday, June 10, 2007

JAPANESE ARCHITECT DELIVERS CHARITY SPEECH IN TAIWAN

Taipei, June 9 (CNA) Japanese architect Tadao Ando, who has long been regarded as one of the greatest living architects in the world, delivered a charity speech on architecture in front of an audience of more than 11,000 Saturday in Taipei.

Ando talked about achieving the harmonious balance between human and architecture, architecture and environment, and the social responsibility of architects in the two-hour speech and forum at Taipei Arena. All the proceeds of the speech will be donated to various charities in Taiwan.

Highlighting the idea of "One Asia, " the 66 years-old architect said modern day architects should pay more attention to environmental protection as environmental issues such as global warming has become a serious concern of all mankind.

"Asia, as a whole, is a unity. While the majority of 6.6 billion global population live in Asia, we have to take the responsibility [to protect the environment], " he said.

Ando underlined the importance of forestation and planting more trees in cities a number of times during his speech and pointed out that more people will visit Taiwan if it decided to do so.

What surprised Ando was his popularity in Taiwan, which has been described as the "Ando fever, " as more than 30,000 people had registered for tickets. Architects, designers, students and professors of Architecture departments, even political heavyweights such as the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate Frank Hsieh and Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin were all in
attendance.

An audience of 2,300 when he had his first speech in Taiwan in 2004 was already impressive, Ando said, adding that the number of attendance he had in Japan was 2,000 at best.

Born in Osaka, Japan, in 1941, Ando has worked as a truck driver and professional boxer prior to launching his architectural career. He has never received formal school education in architecture.

Ando was well-known for his habitual use of fair-faced concrete in most of his works, his ability to develop a unique spatial aesthetic with the combination of Japanese tradition and Modernism elements, and his special way of creating space with concrete, wood, water and lighting.

In 1995, Ando won the prestigious Pritzker Architecture Prize, which is generally considered to be the equivalent of the Nobel Prize in architecture.