Greenhouses to visit in Japan

Tokyo (12)

1973

Greenhouse of the Hoshi University Medicinal Plant Garden (星薬科大学薬用植物園 温室)

🇯🇵 Shinagawa, Tokyo

A 1973 greenhouse of tropical medicinal plants (vanilla, cacao, star fruit) in a university garden in Shinagawa, Tokyo.

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1984

Exhibition Greenhouse (展示温室), Medicinal Plant Garden, Tokyo University of Pharmacy and Life Sciences

🇯🇵 Hachioji (Horinouchi), Tokyo

A glazed greenhouse with a pointed roof, completed in 1984, housing the tropical medicinal plants of a garden that calls itself Tokyo's largest.

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1984

Jindai Botanical Gardens Greenhouse

🇯🇵 Chōfu, Tokyo

A large tropical glasshouse in western Tokyo, extended in 2016, with its room of tropical water lilies.

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1987–1988

Insectopia Butterfly Greenhouse, Tama Zoological Park (多摩動物公園 昆虫生態園)

🇯🇵 Hino, Tokyo

Seen from above, this greenhouse set over a small valley traces a butterfly; it won the Architectural Institute of Japan Prize in 1989.

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1988

Yumenoshima Tropical Greenhouse Dome

🇯🇵 Kōtō, Tokyo

On a former landfill in Tokyo Bay, three glass domes heated by waste heat from a nearby incineration plant.

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1993

Large Greenhouse, Adachi Park of Living Things (足立区生物園 大温室)

🇯🇵 Adachi, Tokyo

A two-level tropical greenhouse where the park released 9,368 butterflies of 65 species in a single year, mostly in this house.

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1994

Green Dome Nettaikan, Itabashi Tropical Environment Botanical Garden (板橋区立熱帯環境植物館)

🇯🇵 Itabashi, Tokyo

A tropical glasshouse heated with waste heat from the neighbouring Itabashi incineration plant.

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2005 · 2023

Shibuya City Botanical Garden Fureai (渋谷区ふれあい植物センター)

🇯🇵 Shibuya, Tokyo

Originally powered by the incineration plant next door, the smallest member of Japan's botanical garden association now grows fruit to eat.

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2012 · 1958

Shinjuku Gyoen Large Greenhouse (新宿御苑大温室)

🇯🇵 Shinjuku, Tokyo

Rebuilt in 2012 after five and a half years of closure, it is cooled in summer partly by underground air tubes rather than by air conditioning alone.

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2019

Koishikawa Botanical Garden Public Glasshouse (小石川植物園 公開温室)

🇯🇵 Bunkyō, Tokyo

A glass house opened in 2019 that keeps the brick foundations of its predecessor, on a botanical site founded in 1684.

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2020

HANA・BIYORI-kan, glasshouse of the HANA・BIYORI flower park (Yomiuriland)

🇯🇵 Inagi (Yanokuchi), Tokyo

More than 300 hanging baskets form a floral chandelier under a glass roof that goes dark several times a day for a projection show.

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Greenhouse of the Showa Pharmaceutical University Medicinal Plant Garden (昭和薬科大学薬用植物園 温室棟)

🇯🇵 Machida, Tokyo

A glazed 270 m² greenhouse in a university medicinal plant garden: banana, mango, vanilla, tamarind and Ayurvedic plants.

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Hyōgo Prefecture (9)

1980

Tegarayama Greenhouse Botanical Garden (姫路市立手柄山温室植物園)

🇯🇵 Himeji, Hyōgo Prefecture

A 660 m² glass-panelled dome on the hill of Himeji's Peace Park, with a waterfall, palms, orchids and carnivorous plants.

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1990

Butterfly Greenhouse, Itami City Museum of Insects (伊丹市昆虫館 チョウ温室)

🇯🇵 Itami, Hyōgo Prefecture

A 15-metre hemispherical glass greenhouse where some 1,000 butterflies of about fourteen species fly all year round.

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2000

Awaji Green Kan (あわじグリーン館), Awaji Yumebutai Greenhouse

🇯🇵 Awaji, Hyōgo Prefecture

Designed by Tadao Ando on a hill whose earth was used to build Kansai airport, it is Japan's second-largest greenhouse.

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2006

Inside Park glasshouse, Kobe Animal Kingdom (神戸どうぶつ王国)

🇯🇵 Port Island, Kobe, Hyōgo Prefecture

A flower-and-animal park on Port Island set in a glasshouse, with hanging flowers, tropical water lilies and an inhabited tropical forest.

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Exhibition Greenhouse (Green Rest Area), Kitayama Botanical Garden (西宮市北山緑化植物園 展示温室／緑の休憩所)

🇯🇵 Nishinomiya, Hyōgo Prefecture

A small greenhouse with a glazed upper floor and pyramid skylight, reopened in 2022 as a green rest area: succulents, carnivorous plants, orchids and benches.

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Exhibition Greenhouse (展示温室), Kobe Fruit & Flower Park Ōsawa (道の駅 神戸フルーツ・フラワーパーク大沢)

🇯🇵 Kobe (Kita-ku, Ōsawa-chō), Hyōgo Prefecture

A block of glasshouses lined by a visitor corridor, in a Kobe park devoted to flowers and fruit, opened in 1993.

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Greenhouse, Botanical Garden of Amagasaki City, Kamisakabe-Nishi Park (上坂部西公園 温室)

🇯🇵 Amagasaki, Hyōgo Prefecture

A greenhouse of some 800 kinds of plants on former factory land that a 4,300-signature petition saved from becoming a bowling alley.

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Large Greenhouse, Hyogo Prefectural Flower Center (兵庫県立フラワーセンター 大温室)

🇯🇵 Kasai, Hyōgo Prefecture

A 55.5 cm Nepenthes truncata pitcher grown here has held the Guinness world record for the largest pitcher-plant trap since 2022.

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Ornamental Greenhouse (観賞温室), Suma Rikyu Park Botanical Garden

🇯🇵 Kobe (Suma Ward), Hyōgo Prefecture

A tropical conservatory of brick under a glass vault, at the centre of the botanical garden of a former estate, with an upper-level viewing gallery.

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Aichi Prefecture (6)

1985

World Tropical Fruit Greenhouse, Togokusan Fruit Park (東谷山フルーツパーク 世界の熱帯果樹温室)

🇯🇵 Moriyama-ku, Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture

Its two domes, one large and one small, echo the keyhole-shaped burial mounds found in numbers around Mount Tōgoku.

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1996

Great Greenhouse, Toyohashi Zoo and Botanical Park (Nonhoi Park)

🇯🇵 Toyohashi, Aichi Prefecture

A 2,700 m² glasshouse displays some 850 tropical and subtropical species around the theme of an 'everlasting summer'.

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1997

Floral Place Greenhouse, Denpark (安城産業文化公園デンパーク フローラルプレイス)

🇯🇵 Anjō, Aichi Prefecture

Under a 3,600 m² glass atrium, a recreated Danish street and a Little Mermaid statue surround flower beds renewed five times a year.

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Flower Center, Nagoya Agricultural Culture Park (名古屋市農業文化園 フラワーセンター)

🇯🇵 Minato-ku, Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture

A four-seasons garden, a fern forest, a room of aerial roots and a cactus field surround the central hall of this free municipal greenhouse.

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Green Plaza Greenhouse, Shōnai Ryokuchi Park (庄内緑地グリーンプラザ 温室)

🇯🇵 Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture

A glass greenhouse at the entrance of a Nagoya park: over 100 kinds of plants, a central pond and a herb garden upstairs.

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Twin-Dome Botanical Garden (植物園 ツインドーム), Kuragaike Park (鞍ヶ池公園)

🇯🇵 Toyota, Aichi Prefecture

A botanical garden in Toyota under two geodesic domes with triangular panels, planted with tropical trees all year round.

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Kanagawa Prefecture (6)

1979

Gōra Park Tropical Greenhouses (箱根強羅公園 熱帯植物館)

🇯🇵 Hakone, Kanagawa Prefecture

In a French-style garden opened in 1914, the bougainvillea house keeps a bonsai-trained specimen estimated to be 160 years old.

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1992

The 'Sagamihara Dome' conservatory of the Kitasato University Bio-Garden (北里大学薬学部附属薬用植物園 ドーム温室)

🇯🇵 Sagamihara, Kanagawa Prefecture

A glazed dome of 1992, nicknamed the 'Sagamihara Dome', where guarana and jaborandi flower, at the centre of a 900-species garden.

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1995

Tropical Dome Greenhouse, Odawara Flower Garden (小田原フラワーガーデン トロピカルドーム温室)

🇯🇵 Odawara, Kanagawa Prefecture

A domed greenhouse 40 m across, kept at around 22 °C by surplus heat from the neighbouring municipal incineration plant.

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Green House, Ōfuna Flower Center (日比谷花壇大船フラワーセンター グリーンハウス)

🇯🇵 Kamakura (Ōfuna), Kanagawa Prefecture

A ring-shaped glasshouse designed for light and airflow, now an unheated exhibition space at the heart of a peony garden.

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Sakata Seed Green House, Sagamihara Park (サカタのタネグリーンハウス)

🇯🇵 Sagamihara, Kanagawa Prefecture

A large tropical glasshouse heated and cooled with hot water from a neighbouring waste incinerator, at the centre of a French-inspired garden.

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Terrarium House exhibition greenhouse, Nagakubo Park Urban Greenery Botanical Garden (長久保公園都市緑化植物園 展示温室「テラリウムハウス」)

🇯🇵 Fujisawa, Kanagawa Prefecture

A small greenhouse with glass walls and roof, full of orchids and tropical plants, set inside the reception building of a district park.

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Shizuoka Prefecture (5)

1958

Atagawa Tropical & Alligator Garden (熱川バナナワニ園)

🇯🇵 Higashi-Izu, Shizuoka Prefecture

Since 1958, steam from Atagawa's near-boiling hot springs has heated greenhouses growing more than twenty kinds of banana.

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1959–1963

Pyramid Cactus Greenhouses, Izu Shaboten Zoo (伊豆シャボテン動物公園)

🇯🇵 Itō, Shizuoka Prefecture

Pyramid greenhouses, planned in 1959 to punctuate the grassland below Mount Ōmuro, hold some 1,500 species of cacti and succulents.

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1996

Tropical Dome and Tropical Fruit Greenhouse, Hamamatsu Fruit Park (はままつフルーツパーク時之栖 トロピカルドーム・熱帯果樹温室)

🇯🇵 Hamamatsu, Shizuoka Prefecture

A pentagonal dome classed as glass architecture, inspired by the giant kites of the Hamamatsu festival, with banana, papaya and some 80 species of tropical fruit trees.

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2003

Crystal Palace Greenhouse, Hamamatsu Flower Park (はままつフラワーパーク 大温室)

🇯🇵 Hamamatsu, Shizuoka Prefecture

Nicknamed the Crystal Palace, the great glasshouse was renewed in 2003 with sashless glazing described as a first in Japan.

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2003

Kakegawa Kachoen Great Greenhouse (掛川花鳥園)

🇯🇵 Kakegawa, Shizuoka Prefecture

In a greenhouse of about 7,000 m², some 600 birds of a hundred species live among hanging impatiens and tropical water lilies.

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Osaka Prefecture (4)

1983

Greenhouse of Hattori Ryokuchi Urban Greening Botanical Garden (服部緑地都市緑化植物園 温室)

🇯🇵 Toyonaka, Osaka Prefecture

A glasshouse inside a 1983 building that straddles almost 5 m of level change, with cacti, a water-lily pool and a camellia room.

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1989

Rest Flower Hall, greenhouse of the Satsukiyama Ryokuchi Urban Greenery Botanical Garden, Ikeda Green Center (五月山緑地都市緑化植物園 レストフラワーホール)

🇯🇵 Ikeda, Osaka Prefecture

A glazed greenhouse of 1989 at the foot of Mount Satsuki, where the tourist association reports rare flowers and seasonal flowers, with free entry.

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1990

Great Greenhouse, Osaka Prefectural Flower Culture Garden (大阪府立花の文化園 大温室)

🇯🇵 Kawachinagano, Osaka Prefecture

A glass pyramid shaped like a flower bud, a legacy of Osaka's 1990 International Garden and Greenery Exposition.

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Ryokka Shokubutsuen Greenhouse, Flower and Green Plaza, Osakasayama Fureai-no-Sato (大阪狭山市立市民ふれあいの里 緑化植物園)

🇯🇵 Osakasayama, Osaka Prefecture

A greenhouse with a curved glazed roof on steel ribs, holding about 70 tropical species, in a municipal park in Osakasayama.

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Chiba Prefecture (3)

1993

Greenhouses of the Ichikawa Ornamental Botanical Garden (市川市観賞植物園 大温室・サボテン温室)

🇯🇵 Ichikawa (Ōmachi Park), Chiba Prefecture

Two glass houses side by side, cacti in one and tropical plants in the other, in a free municipal garden opened in 1993.

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1995 · 2025

BOTANICA MUSEUM Greenhouse, former Chiba City Flower Museum (千葉市花の美術館)

🇯🇵 Mihama-ku, Chiba, Chiba Prefecture

Built around a waterfall for the 1995 urban greening fair, the cylindrical glass greenhouse kept its original layout in the 2025 artistic makeover.

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2026

Greenhouse of the Otaki Useful Plants Garden, former Otaki Herb Garden (大多喜有用植物苑 温室)

🇯🇵 Otaki, Chiba Prefecture

A former large glasshouse, kept as an air-conditioned wing and turned into an Asian indoor garden with a restaurant and a shop, opened in 2026.

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Fukuoka Prefecture (3)

2005

Grin Grin (ぐりんぐりん), Island City Central Park

🇯🇵 Higashi-ku, Fukuoka, Fukuoka Prefecture

Toyo Ito shaped it as three free-form shells of concrete, steel and glass, likened to pearls strung along a green belt.

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2014

Camellia Glasshouse, Kurume World Camellia Museum (久留米市世界のつばき館 ツバキ展示施設)

🇯🇵 Kurume (Kusano district), Fukuoka Prefecture

A glasshouse devoted to wild camellias, with more than a hundred species arranged in five geographical zones.

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Tropical Ecology Garden, Hibikinada Green Park (響灘緑地 熱帯生態園)

🇯🇵 Kitakyushu (Wakamatsu Ward), Fukuoka Prefecture

A glass-fronted hall of about 1,500 m² where banyans, palms and some 500 ōgomadara butterflies share a single roof.

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Gunma Prefecture (3)

1970

Tropical Grand Dome, Kusatsu Nettaiken (草津熱帯圏 熱帯大ドーム)

🇯🇵 Kusatsu, Gunma Prefecture

Warmed by the heat of Kusatsu's hot springs, this 15-metre dome stays at about 23 °C all year at an altitude of some 1,200 metres.

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2005

Ecological Greenhouse of the Observation Hall, Gunma Insect World (ぐんま昆虫の森 生態温室)

🇯🇵 Kiryū (Niisato), Gunma Prefecture

A glass shell by Tadao Ando, cut from a sphere 57 m in radius, shelters a subtropical forest alive with butterflies.

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Indoor Ecological Garden (屋内生態園) greenhouse, Takasaki Dye Plant Garden (高崎市染料植物園)

🇯🇵 Takasaki (Terao-machi), Gunma Prefecture

A small greenhouse with a clear-panel roof where the dye plants of Okinawa and southern Asia are followed through four zones, one of them a mangrove.

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Ibaraki Prefecture (3)

1981 · 2025

Vanilla Dome, Tropical Plant House of Ibaraki Botanical Garden (バニラドーム／茨城県植物園 熱帯植物館)

🇯🇵 Naka, Ibaraki Prefecture

More than fifty vanilla plants were added to this tropical house, renamed the Vanilla Dome when it reopened in 2025.

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1987

Display Greenhouse, Mito Botanical Park (水戸市植物公園 観賞大温室)

🇯🇵 Mito, Ibaraki Prefecture

Heated for over thirty years by waste heat from a neighbouring incinerator, this greenhouse won Mitsuo Taki a landscape architecture prize.

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Tsukuba Botanical Garden Greenhouses (筑波実験植物園)

🇯🇵 Tsukuba, Ibaraki Prefecture

In 2023 the garden achieved, by hand pollination, the first fruiting in Japan of the titan arum (Amorphophallus titanum).

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Miyazaki Prefecture (3)

1967 · 2016

Large Greenhouse, Aoshima Subtropical Botanical Garden (県立青島亜熱帯植物園 大温室)

🇯🇵 Miyazaki, Miyazaki Prefecture

A ramp runs along all four glazed walls of this 14-metre-high greenhouse, lifting visitors to a gallery above the bougainvilleas.

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Greenhouse of the Nobeoka Botanical Garden (延岡植物園 温室)

🇯🇵 Nobeoka, Miyazaki Prefecture

A glazed greenhouse in Nobeoka's municipal botanical garden, an 8.7-hectare garden opened in 1987.

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Oyodogawa Gakushukan Butterfly Room (大淀川学習館 自然楽習園 チョウのへや)

🇯🇵 Miyazaki, Miyazaki Prefecture

An unconditioned glass room where an average of 50 to 200 butterflies fly, bred on site, in a free municipal centre.

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Tochigi Prefecture (3)

Akita Prefecture (2)

Southern Dome Noshiro Tropical Garden, Noshiro Energium Park (サザンドームのしろ／能代エナジアムパーク)

🇯🇵 Noshiro, Akita Prefecture

Beneath a transparent dome, waste heat from a coal-fired power station warms a jungle of some 460 species through the winter.

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Tropical Greenhouse, Akita Prefectural Museum of Agricultural Science "Sun Agrin" (秋田県立農業科学館 熱帯温室)

🇯🇵 Daisen, Akita Prefecture

A tropical greenhouse of about 473 m², kept at a constant temperature all year, with some 200 species and a winter orchid festival.

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Gifu Prefecture (2)

Hana no Chikyūkan (花の地球館), great greenhouse of the Gifu World Rose Garden (ぎふワールド・ローズガーデン)

🇯🇵 Kani, Gifu Prefecture

The glazed great greenhouse of the former Flower Festa 95 park: 2,669 m² and about 1,000 species, closed since June 2026 because of its age.

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Tropical Useful Plants Greenhouse, Medicinal Plant Garden of the Naito Museum of Pharmaceutical Science and Industry (内藤記念くすり博物館 熱帯有用植物温室)

🇯🇵 Kakamigahara, Gifu Prefecture

A glazed greenhouse of useful tropical plants (cacao, vanilla, banana, sandalwood) in the medicinal garden of a pharmacy museum, open to all.

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Hokkaido (2)

1986

Yurigahara Green Center Greenhouses (百合が原緑のセンター温室)

🇯🇵 Kita-ku, Sapporo, Hokkaido

In Japan's far north, some 250 camellia cultivars, shrubs that do not grow wild in Hokkaido, flower under glass.

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1989

EGG (Ever Green Garden), Kushiro Fisherman's Wharf

🇯🇵 Kushiro, Hokkaido

A fully glazed vault on the Kushiro River has housed an evergreen garden since 1989, in spite of Hokkaido's long winters.

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Niigata (2)

Toyama Prefecture (2)

Elsewhere (26)

1936–1937

Greenhouse of the Higashiyama Botanical Garden (Nagoya)

🇯🇵 Nagoya

The oldest greenhouse still standing in Japan, nicknamed the 'Crystal Palace of the Orient.'

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1992

Conservatory of the Kyoto Botanical Garden

🇯🇵 Kyoto

A glass silhouette designed to echo the nearby Kinkaku-ji.

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1962

Shimokamo Tropical Garden (下賀茂熱帯植物園)

🇯🇵 Shimokamo, Minamiizu (Shizuoka Prefecture)

A greenhouse heated by Shimokamo's hot springs, free to enter since 2014, where bougainvillea, hibiscus and jade vine bloom.

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1976 · 2018

Hiroshima Botanical Garden Large Greenhouse (広島市植物公園 大温室)

🇯🇵 Saeki-ku, Hiroshima

Renovated in 2018, the great glasshouse is home to an Australian baobab brought some 11,000 km from Kununurra.

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1980

Fukuoka City Botanical Garden Greenhouse (福岡市植物園)

🇯🇵 Chūō-ku, Fukuoka

In the large greenhouse, an upper floor looks down on a tropical forest where papaya, mango and coffee ripen.

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1986

Tropical Dream Center (熱帯ドリームセンター)

🇯🇵 Motobu, Okinawa Prefecture

More than 2,000 orchids are on permanent display beneath a 36 m lookout tower facing the East China Sea.

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1989

Butterfly Greenhouse, Kashihara City Museum of Insects (橿原市昆虫館 放蝶温室)

🇯🇵 Kashihara, Nara Prefecture

A glasshouse shaped like a butterfly with outspread wings, where some 500 subtropical butterflies fly all year round.

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1990

Sakuya Konohana Kan (咲くやこの花館)

🇯🇵 Tsurumi-ku, Osaka

Built as the City of Osaka's pavilion for Expo '90, it is billed by its operators as the largest greenhouse in Japan.

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1991

Hana no Kyukeijo (Large Greenhouse), Kumamoto City Zoological and Botanical Gardens (熊本市動植物園 花の休憩所)

🇯🇵 Kumamoto, Kumamoto Prefecture

A greenhouse of 2,389 m² of floor area (1991), with orchids, cacti, a subtropical forest and sloths, at the entrance of the Kumamoto zoo's plant zone.

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1995

Tokiwa Museum World-Travelling Plant House (ときわミュージアム 世界を旅する植物館)

🇯🇵 Ube, Yamaguchi Prefecture

A baobab brought from Senegal, described as one of the largest in Japan, anchors a botanical journey around the world.

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1996

Lotus Hall Atrium Greenhouse, Mizunomori Water Botanical Garden (草津市立水生植物公園みずの森 ロータス館)

🇯🇵 Kusatsu, Shiga Prefecture

The park says this heated greenhouse produced the only flowering in Japan of a true sal tree, one of the sacred trees of Buddhism.

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1997–1998

Butterfly Greenhouse "Chō no sono", Ishikawa Prefectural Fureai Insect Museum (石川県ふれあい昆虫館 放蝶温室「チョウの園」)

🇯🇵 Hakusan, Ishikawa Prefecture

A butterfly greenhouse in an atrium at the heart of a glass-fronted museum: about 10 species and 1,000 butterflies in flight all year.

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1997

Hana-no-Yakata and Exhibition Greenhouses, Iwate Prefectural Flower Center (岩手県立花きセンター 花の館温室・展示温室)

🇯🇵 Kanegasaki, Iwate Prefecture

A greenhouse opened in 1997 with plants donated by Okinawa: three climate zones, from subtropical to '40° north', free to enter.

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1999

Tottori Hanakairo Flower Dome (とっとり花回廊 フラワードーム)

🇯🇵 Nanbu, Tottori Prefecture

A 50-metre glass dome standing at the centre of a ring of covered walkways one kilometre long.

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2000

Floral Dome 'Furara', the all-weather greenhouse of Hana-no-Miyako Park (山中湖花の都公園 フローラルドームふらら)

🇯🇵 Yamanakako, Yamanashi Prefecture

A two-storey glazed dome greenhouse, opened in 2000 near Mount Fuji, where orchids and tropical plants flower even in midwinter.

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2000

Ornamental Greenhouse, Genkai Energy Park (玄海エネルギーパーク 観賞用温室)

🇯🇵 Genkai, Saga Prefecture

A glasshouse heated with waste heat from a nuclear power station, holding 16,000 plants of some 200 species.

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2001

Center House, Matsue Vogel Park (松江フォーゲルパーク センターハウス)

🇯🇵 Matsue, Shimane Prefecture

A display glasshouse of about 8,000 m² where some 10,000 begonias and fuchsias bloom all year at around 20 °C.

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2010

Makino Botanical Garden Greenhouse (高知県立牧野植物園 温室)

🇯🇵 Kōchi, Kōchi Prefecture

Visitors enter through a stone tower planted with akō figs, whose aerial roots are meant to wrap its walls over time.

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Begonia Garden, Nabana no Sato (なばなの里 ベゴニアガーデン)

🇯🇵 Nagashima, Kuwana, Mie Prefecture

Four glasshouses of about 9,000 m² where some 5,000 pots of tuberous begonias bloom all year round.

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Display Greenhouse (展示温室), Iwaki City Flower Center (いわき市フラワーセンター)

🇯🇵 Iwaki, Fukushima Prefecture

A display greenhouse with a glazed vaulted roof, in a 26-hectare park on Mount Ishimori at Iwaki.

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Flower Dome, the large greenhouse of Nagasaki Bio Park (長崎バイオパーク フラワードーム)

🇯🇵 Saikai, Nagasaki Prefecture

A large glazed dome of 1,200 m² where bougainvilleas flower all year and flying foxes live without fencing.

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Greenhouses of the Fukuchiyama Urban Greenery Botanical Garden, Sandanike Park (福知山市都市緑化植物園)

🇯🇵 Fukuchiyama, Kyoto Prefecture

Three glazed greenhouses (cacti, tropical fruit trees, orchids), nicknamed "Small Terra", in the middle of Sandanike Park.

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Handayama Botanical Garden Greenhouses (岡山市半田山植物園 温室)

🇯🇵 Okayama (Kita Ward), Okayama Prefecture

A group of greenhouses on Handayama hill: desert and tropical plants, a bromeliad room and a dome room, starting from a wooden house in 1957.

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Ornamental Greenhouse, Sano Botanical Park (佐野植物公園 観賞温室)

🇯🇵 Ōita, Ōita Prefecture

A brick-built greenhouse warmed by surplus heat from the neighbouring waste incinerator, which also feeds the park's foot bath.

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Tamanegi House, Fukui Prefectural General Green Center (福井県総合グリーンセンター)

🇯🇵 Sakai (Maruoka), Fukui Prefecture

A glass onion-shaped dome nicknamed "Tamanegi House", where flowers replaced tropical plants in 2015.

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Tropical Greenhouse (熱帯温室), Flower Park Kagoshima (フラワーパークかごしま)

🇯🇵 Ibusuki, Kagoshima Prefecture

A tropical greenhouse with a glazed roof in a 36.5-hectare park at Ibusuki, where the palm ヒメショウジョウヤシ is shown in large numbers.

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Architecture in Japan

1932

Kimura Industrial Research Institute (木村産業研究所)

🇯🇵 Hirosaki, Aomori Prefecture

Kunio Maekawa's first work: a white facade, ribbon windows and pilotis, designed on his return from Le Corbusier's atelier.

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1951

Kamakura Bunkakan Tsurugaoka Museum (鎌倉文華館 鶴岡ミュージアム)

🇯🇵 Kamakura, Kanagawa Prefecture

Built for Japan's first public modern art museum, beside Heike Pond in the grounds of a shrine.

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1954

Taro Okamoto Memorial Museum, former house and studio (岡本太郎記念館)

🇯🇵 Minami-Aoyama, Minato, Tokyo

A studio of stacked concrete-block walls under a convex-lens roof, now a museum, with a garden where banana plants, ferns and weeds grow freely.

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1955

Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, Main Building (広島平和記念資料館本館)

🇯🇵 Hiroshima (Peace Memorial Park)

A long reinforced-concrete volume raised on pilotis, its upper level lined with fine vertical fins.

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1955

Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park (広島平和記念公園)

🇯🇵 Naka-ku, Hiroshima

An axis drawn from the Atomic Bomb Dome to Peace Boulevard carries the plaza, the cenotaph and its pond.

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1955

International House of Japan (国際文化会館)

🇯🇵 Roppongi, Minato ward, Tokyo

Designed by Maekawa, Sakakura and Yoshimura together, the building reaches out to the edge of the pond in a 1930 garden, like a fishing pavilion in Heian-period scroll paintings.

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1955–1959

National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo (国立西洋美術館)

🇯🇵 Ueno Park, Taito-ku, Tokyo

Le Corbusier's only building in Japan: a square-spiral museum designed to grow, around a great central hall lit from above in the original project.

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1958

Former Shimane Prefectural Museum, Main Building (旧島根県立博物館本館)

🇯🇵 Matsue, Shimane Prefecture

A white box-shaped upper floor lifted on concrete columns, in a white and black that matches the castle keep.

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1958

Imabari City Public Hall (今治市公会堂)

🇯🇵 Imabari, Ehime

An angular concrete battleship whose walls carry triangular reinforcements recalling the folds of origami.

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1958

Kagawa Prefectural Government Office, East Building (香川県庁舎東館)

🇯🇵 Takamatsu, Kagawa Prefecture

Reinforced-concrete posts and beams that translate traditional Japanese architecture, with a piloti and a lobby open to the local people.

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1959

Silk Center (シルクセンター国際貿易観光会館)

🇯🇵 Yamashita-cho, Naka-ku, Yokohama

A roof garden on a sturdy long-span base, designed so that the light glazing of the former hotel seems to float above it.

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1960

Kurashiki City Art Museum, former City Hall (倉敷市立美術館)

🇯🇵 Kurashiki, Okayama Prefecture

A concrete city hall with facades of stacked hollow blocks that take on the look of an azekura, now an art museum.

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1961

Tokyo Bunka Kaikan (東京文化会館)

🇯🇵 Tokyo (Taitō ward), Ueno Park

An opera and concert hall of exposed concrete in Ueno Park, whose eaves match the height of Le Corbusier's museum opposite.

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1962

Athénée Français (アテネ・フランセ)

🇯🇵 Tokyo (Chiyoda, Kanda-Surugadai)

A language-school building put up in 1962 to designs by Takamasa Yoshizaka and awarded the Architectural Institute of Japan Prize; a storey and a tower added in 1970 gave birth to a cultural centre there.

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1963

Ichimura Memorial Gymnasium (市村記念体育館)

🇯🇵 Saga, Saga Prefecture

A gymnasium roofed with a saddle-shaped hyperbolic-paraboloid shell, which recalls a crown from the front and a horse's saddle from the side.

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1963

Karasawa Hyutte, new building (涸沢ヒュッテ新館)

🇯🇵 Matsumoto, Nagano Prefecture (Karasawa cirque)

A timber hut at 2,310 m, half sunk into the slope on one side to escape the horizontal thrust of avalanches.

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1964–1970

Ashiya Civic Center and Luna Hall (芦屋市民センター・ルナ・ホール)

🇯🇵 Ashiya, Hyōgo Prefecture

A reinforced-concrete municipal hall whose outer walls are covered in Japanese ivy, beside the Ashiya River.

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1964

Former Ueno City Hall, SAKAKURA BASE (旧上野市庁舎 SAKAKURA BASE)

🇯🇵 Iga, Mie Prefecture

A low former city hall of exposed concrete, set by Sakakura at the foot of the castle hill of Ueno, now home to a hotel, a café and a library.

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1964

Hirosaki Civic Hall (弘前市民会館)

🇯🇵 Hirosaki, Aomori Prefecture

Concrete cast in hiba-wood formwork, in the grounds of Hirosaki Castle, and a stage curtain woven after Shikō Munakata.

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1964

Saint Mary's Cathedral, Tokyo (東京カテドラル聖マリア大聖堂)

🇯🇵 Bunkyō, Tokyo

Eight concrete shells stand upright and meet at the top in a cross, through which the light comes down.

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1964

Yoyogi National Gymnasium (国立代々木競技場)

🇯🇵 Shibuya, Tokyo

Two suspended-roof gymnasiums built for the 1964 Olympics: one forms two offset semicircles, the other recalls a shell.

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1965–1989

Inter-University Seminar House (大学セミナーハウス)

🇯🇵 Hachiōji, Tokyo

A wedge of rough concrete driven into a hill in Tama, within a complex composed like village clusters.

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1966

Former Ōita Prefectural Library, Art Plaza (旧大分県立大分図書館)

🇯🇵 Ōita, Ōita Prefecture

Hollow beams of exposed concrete, giant paired walls and half-level floors: a representative early work by Isozaki, in his hometown.

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1967 · 2011

Morioka History and Culture Museum (もりおか歴史文化館)

🇯🇵 Morioka, Iwate Prefecture

A 1967 library by Kiyonori Kikutake, extended and turned into a history museum in the Morioka Castle ruins park.

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1968

Shimane Prefectural Library, original building (島根県立図書館旧館)

🇯🇵 Matsue, Shimane Prefecture

An exposed-concrete frame that zigzags along the moat; its load-bearing walls, set at 45 degrees to the glazing, keep the view of the castle hill clear.

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1969

Nozawa Onsen Lodge (野沢温泉ロッヂ)

🇯🇵 Nozawa Onsen, Nagano Prefecture

An acorn-shaped ski lodge whose rooms radiate around a spiral staircase.

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1973

Bernard Buffet Museum (ベルナール・ビュフェ美術館)

🇯🇵 Nagaizumi, Shizuoka Prefecture

A main building that combines cube, cylinders and a triangular prism; its large hall rises twelve metres under natural overhead light.

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1973

Tomishima House (富島邸)

🇯🇵 Kita-ku, Osaka

A house of 1973 that Tadao Ando bought to make it his studio, before pulling it down in 1991.

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1974

The Museum of Modern Art, Gunma (群馬県立近代美術館)

🇯🇵 Takasaki, Gunma Prefecture

A stack of cube frames 12 metres on a side, which sets every dimension of the building, down to the 15 cm floor tiles.

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1975

Matsumura House (松村邸)

🇯🇵 Higashinada Ward, Kobe, Hyōgo Prefecture

A house with a triangular roof and brick walls, built while keeping three camphor trees.

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1975

Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum (東京都美術館)

🇯🇵 Taitō, Tokyo (Ueno Park)

A museum clad in brick-coloured tiles, with nearly 60 percent of its floor area buried in Ueno Park.

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1976

Azuma House, Row House in Sumiyoshi (住吉の長屋)

🇯🇵 Sumiyoshi-ku, Osaka

A concrete house whose roofless courtyard separates the rooms: to get from one to the next, even in the rain, you have to step outside.

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1976

Bansho House (番匠邸)

🇯🇵 Miyoshi, Aichi Prefecture

The "twin" of the Row House in Sumiyoshi: two boxes of exposed concrete, a tiled court serving as an outdoor room, and a pivoting wooden screen.

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1976

Hirabayashi House (貫入 平林邸)

🇯🇵 Suita, Osaka Prefecture

A house where a grid of bare concrete posts and beams and walls, flat and curved, pass through each other.

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1976

Hirosaki City Museum (弘前市立博物館)

🇯🇵 Hirosaki, Aomori Prefecture

Its exterior walls are made of tiles placed in the formwork before the concrete was poured, a process common in Maekawa's late period.

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1976

Kumamoto Prefectural Museum of Art (熊本県立美術館)

🇯🇵 Kumamoto, Kumamoto Prefecture

A low museum in the grounds of Kumamoto Castle, blending into the natural setting around it.

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1977

Kitano Alley (北野アレイ)

🇯🇵 Chuo-ku, Kobe, Hyōgo (Kitano district)

A narrow passage leads to a triangular courtyard around which the shops are arranged on every level.

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1977

Rose Garden (ローズガーデン)

🇯🇵 Kitano, Kobe, Hyōgo Prefecture

A red-brick building around an open-air courtyard: Ando's first work in Kitano.

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1977

Wall House, Matsumoto House (領壁の家 松本邸)

🇯🇵 Ashiya (Hyogo Prefecture)

A house held between two large free-standing walls that marked out, within nature, a territory for living.

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1978

Ishihara House, the Glass Block House (ガラスブロックの家 石原邸)

🇯🇵 Ikuno-ku, Osaka

A concrete box closed to the street, hiding a courtyard enclosed on three sides by glass blocks.

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1979

Fukuoka Art Museum (福岡市美術館)

🇯🇵 Fukuoka, Fukuoka Prefecture

Red-brown tiles fired in Tokoname and cast into the concrete, beside a pond in Ōhori Park.

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1979

Glass Block Wall, Horiuchi House (ガラスブロックウォール 堀内邸)

🇯🇵 Sumiyoshi-ku, Osaka

A screen of glass blocks set between the house and the traffic of the street.

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1979

Kōshienguchi Labyrinth Building (ヌーベル甲子園口)

🇯🇵 Kōshienguchi, Nishinomiya (Hyōgo)

A commercial building where you lose count of the floors, nicknamed the "labyrinth building".

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1980

Kitano Ivy Court, now Grand Suite Kitano (北野アイビーコート)

🇯🇵 Chuo-ku, Kobe, Hyōgo (Kitano district)

A residential building with a brick facade, beside a sloping street in Kitano.

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1981

Atelier in Oyodo I (大淀のアトリエ I)

🇯🇵 Kita-ku, Osaka

The 1973 Tomishima House, turned into Ando's office and extended in stages until it formed a labyrinthine space.

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1981

Koshino House (小篠邸)

🇯🇵 Ashiya, Hyōgo Prefecture

Two concrete boxes of different heights, half-buried in the slope of a national park and linked by a tunnel under the steps of a courtyard.

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1981

Rin's Gallery (リンズギャラリー)

🇯🇵 Chuo-ku, Kobe, Hyōgo (Kitano district)

Two gabled buildings set slightly out of line with each other, in brick and exposed concrete.

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1981

Treasure Hall of Izumo Taisha (神祜殿)

🇯🇵 Izumo, Shimane Prefecture

Completed in 1981 to a design by Kiyonori Kikutake, it shows the remains of the central pillar of an earlier main sanctuary, unearthed in 2000 in the grounds of Izumo Taisha.

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1982

Tea House for Soseikan-Yamaguchi House (双生観の茶室)

🇯🇵 Takarazuka, Hyōgo Prefecture

A concrete tea house whose traditional low entrance, the nijiriguchi, is not a door but a fixed pane of glass.

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1983

Hyogo Prefectural Museum of History (兵庫県立歴史博物館)

🇯🇵 Himeji, Hyōgo Prefecture

A museum that echoes the neighbouring Himeji Castle: its walls stand for the stone ramparts, its ventilation openings for the loopholes, and the glass of its tea lounge reflects the keep.

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1983

Rokko Housing I (六甲の集合住宅I)

🇯🇵 Nada-ku, Kobe (Hyōgo)

Concrete homes stepped up a 60-degree slope at the foot of Mount Rokko.

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1984

Festival (フェスティバル)

🇯🇵 Naha, Okinawa Prefecture

A 36 m concrete cube designed around a large central void, whose perforated concrete-block screens control wind and light.

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1984

House in Ikoma (南林邸)

🇯🇵 Ikoma, Nara Prefecture

A three-level concrete house for three households of one family: each home is independent, the outdoor space is shared.

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1984

Iwasa House (岩佐邸)

🇯🇵 Ashiya, Hyōgo Prefecture

A two-phase house unified by an enveloping curved wall lit from above, with a buried bedroom added to the south.

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1984

Koshino House Addition (小篠邸増築)

🇯🇵 Ashiya (Hyogo Prefecture)

A cave-like wing sunk into the slope north of Koshino House and enclosed by a quarter-circle wall.

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1984

Melrose Headquarters (メルローズ本社ビル)

🇯🇵 Meguro, Tokyo

Bare concrete walls and a cylindrical reception hall covered in glass, for a clothing brand's headquarters.

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1984

TIME'S

🇯🇵 Kyoto (Nakagyo-ku)

A ground floor brought down to the water of the Takase River, in the heart of Kyoto.

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1985

Guest House for Hattori House (服部邸ゲストルーム)

🇯🇵 Abeno Ward, Osaka

A guest house that Ando slipped in 1984-85 between an existing house and the neighbouring plot, in Osaka.

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1985

Jun Port Island Building (ジュン・ポートアイランドビル)

🇯🇵 Port Island, Kobe, Hyōgo Prefecture

An L-shaped building of the JUN fashion brand, one of the central elements of Kobe's "Fashion Town", now slated for demolition.

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1985

Nakayama Residence (中山邸)

🇯🇵 Nara, Nara Prefecture

A reinforced-concrete house of 1985 in Nara, presented in August of the same year by the Shinkenchiku-sha review Jutakutokushu.

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1985

Niigata City Art Museum (新潟市美術館)

🇯🇵 Niigata, Niigata Prefecture

Olive-green tile walls set into the concrete, on the site of the old Niigata prison, facing a park that recreates the canals and willows of the old city.

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1986

Chapel on Mount Rokkō (風の教会)

🇯🇵 Mount Rokkō, Kobe (Hyōgo)

A 40 m passage lined with frosted glass leads to a small bare-concrete chapel whose large windows open onto the greenery of Mount Rokkō.

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1986

Kidosaki House (城戸崎邸)

🇯🇵 Setagaya, Tokyo

A twelve-metre cube behind a concrete wall that curves inward to lead people to the entrance.

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1986

Riran's Gate (リランズゲート)

🇯🇵 Chuo-ku, Kobe, Hyōgo (Kitano district)

Three buildings under gently curved vaulted roofs, separated by a narrow courtyard.

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1986

Taiyo Cement Headquarters Building (太陽セメント本社ビル)

🇯🇵 Fukushima-ku, Osaka

The headquarters of a concrete-block maker, designed by Tadao Ando and finished in 1986.

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1986

The Hillside Kobe, formerly Old/New Rokko (ゲストハウスOLD/NEW六甲)

🇯🇵 Nada-ku, Kobe (Hyōgo)

A building closed to the outside by a wall of local granite, opening at its centre onto a court turned to the sky.

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1987

Main Pavilion for the Tennoji Fair (天王寺博覧会テーマ館)

🇯🇵 Tennoji Park, Osaka

The main pavilion of a 1987 exhibition, later a screening hall and plant greenhouse before its demolition in 2018.

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1988

Church on the Water

🇯🇵 Tomamu, Shimukappu (Hokkaidō)

A path that hides the water and then reveals it all at once, leading to a cross standing before an artificial lake.

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1988

Galleria [akka] (ガレリア・アッカ)

🇯🇵 Higashi-Shinsaibashi, Chūō, Osaka

A concrete box 8 m wide whose interior is organised around an atrium, a curved wall and a maze of stairs.

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1988

Tea House in Oyodo, Tent Tea House (大淀の茶室（テントの茶室）)

🇯🇵 Oyodo, Kita-ku, Osaka

A light tea house of steel, glass and fabric, perched on the roof ridge of a two-storey building.

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1989

Church of the Light

🇯🇵 Ibaraki, Osaka Prefecture

A cross of light cut through a bare concrete wall, its only ornament.

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1989

Hyōgo Prefectural Children's House (兵庫県立こどもの館)

🇯🇵 Himeji, Hyōgo Prefecture

A children's centre beside a large reservoir, where an artificial stream and ponds make Ando's building seem to float on the water.

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1989

La Collezione (ラ・コレッツィオーネ)

🇯🇵 Minami-Aoyama, Tokyo

Two offset volumes, a glass cylinder and a maze of plazas and terraces, in a building nearly half of which lies underground.

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1989

Raika Headquarters (ライカ本社ビル)

🇯🇵 Sakishima, Suminoe-ku, Osaka

The headquarters of an Osaka clothing company, completed in 1989 to Tadao Ando's designs, whose building debt weighed on the firm; closed in 2004, it was demolished from 2012.

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1989

Yokohama Museum of Art (横浜美術館)

🇯🇵 Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture

A symmetrical stone facade 180 m wide, and a granite Grand Gallery that takes in natural light through a glazed ceiling with openable louvers.

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1990

Art Tower Mito (水戸芸術館)

🇯🇵 Mito, Ibaraki Prefecture

A 100 m landmark tower clad in titanium, its edges tracing a triple helix, is the emblem of a centre that brings together concerts, theatre and contemporary art.

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1990

Garden of Fine Arts, Expo '90 Osaka (名画の庭)

🇯🇵 Tsurumi Ryokuchi Park, Osaka

A reinforced-concrete garden where masterpieces reproduced on ceramic were shown in the open air.

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1990

Harima Heliport (播磨ヘリポート)

🇯🇵 Kamigori, Hyōgo Prefecture (Harima Science Garden City)

A management building with a cylindrical, entirely glazed observation room, for a heliport now closed.

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1990

Ito House, Setagaya (伊東邸)

🇯🇵 Setagaya, Tokyo

Exposed-concrete walls curving in an arc toward the intersection, and behind them a closed courtyard where a large cherry tree grows.

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1991

Atelier in Oyodo II (大淀のアトリエII)

🇯🇵 Toyosaki, Kita-ku, Osaka

A seven-level workplace built around a stair void topped by a skylight.

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1991 · 1996

Himeji City Museum of Literature (姫路文学館)

🇯🇵 Himeji, Hyōgo

An open cylinder and squares of concrete at the foot of Otokoyama Hill, with Himeji Castle in view through glass slits and from the roof terrace.

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1991

Jinchōkan Moriya Historical Museum (神長官守矢史料館)

🇯🇵 Chino, Nagano Prefecture

Fujimori's first building: concrete covered with split sawara boards and a straw render, with four yew posts rising above the roof.

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1991

Rock Field Shizuoka Factory (ロック・フィールド 静岡ファクトリー)

🇯🇵 Iwata, Shizuoka Prefecture

A salad and croquette factory designed by Ando's office, set in the countryside with a wind turbine and a biotope.

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1991

SEAS Building (シーズビル)

🇯🇵 Kita-ku, Osaka

A ten-storey building designed by Tadao Ando as the headquarters of an Osaka advertising production company.

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1991

Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building (東京都庁舎)

🇯🇵 Shinjuku, Tokyo

A stone-clad skyscraper whose upper part divides into two towers, each with a free observation room at 202 m.

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1991

Water Temple (本福寺水御堂)

🇯🇵 Awaji, Hyōgo Prefecture

A temple hall buried beneath a concrete pond of water lilies and lotus, reached by walking down a staircase through the water.

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1992

Benesse House Museum

🇯🇵 Naoshima, Kagawa

A museum-hotel on high ground on Naoshima, whose artworks are found in the building as well as along the shoreline and in the nearby forest.

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1992

Hoshinoko Yakata (星の子館)

🇯🇵 Himeji, Hyōgo Prefecture

A Tadao Ando children's centre where you can sleep on site and, in the evening, look at the sky through the 90 cm telescope of the sixth-floor observatory.

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1992

Kumamoto Prefectural Ancient Burial Mound Museum (熊本県立装飾古墳館)

🇯🇵 Yamaga, Kumamoto Prefecture

A museum that imitates a keyhole-shaped tomb and faces, in point symmetry, a real 107 m burial mound.

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1992

Otemae Art Center (大手前アートセンター)

🇯🇵 Nishinomiya, Hyōgo

The art centre of a Nishinomiya university campus, where students show their work.

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1993

Church in Tarumi (垂水の教会)

🇯🇵 Tarumi Ward, Kobe, Hyōgo Prefecture

A Lutheran church of bare concrete designed by Ando, whose cross, at the centre of the chapel, is the congregation's emblem.

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1993

College of Nursing Art and Science, University of Hyogo, Akashi Campus

🇯🇵 Akashi (Hyogo Prefecture)

A bright university campus by Tadao Ando, with its avenue of zelkova trees and its fountain.

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1993

Edo-Tokyo Museum (東京都江戸東京博物館)

🇯🇵 Sumida, Tokyo

A building 62.2 m high, lifted on four large pillars like a storehouse on stilts.

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1993

Rokko Housing II (六甲の集合住宅II)

🇯🇵 Nada-ku, Kobe (Hyōgo)

Fifty homes on a 5.2 m square module, stepped up the slope of Mount Rokko.

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1994

Garden of Fine Arts, Kyoto (京都府立陶板名画の庭)

🇯🇵 Kyoto (Sakyō-ku), Kyoto Prefecture

Eight masterpieces of painting reproduced on ceramic and shown in the open air, in a concrete garden that descends between ponds and waterfalls, next to the Kyoto Prefectural Botanical Garden.

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1994

House in Nipponbashi (日本橋の家)

🇯🇵 Nipponbashi, Chūō Ward, Osaka

A concrete house with a frontage of only 2.9 m, whose straight stair links four levels around a courtyard.

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1994

Inamori Hall, Kagoshima University (鹿児島大学 稲盛会館)

🇯🇵 Kagoshima, Kagoshima Prefecture

A volume raised on a quarter-circle plan, enclosing an egg-shaped hall part of which pushes out through the glass curtain wall.

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1994

Kiyo Bank, Sakai Building (紀陽銀行堺支店)

🇯🇵 Sakai, Osaka Prefecture

A building of ten storeys above ground and two below, designed by Ando's office for a Wakayama bank and completed in 1994.

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1994

Museum of Wood Culture (Kinodendo, 木の殿堂)

🇯🇵 Kami, Hyōgo Prefecture

A wooden ring 46 m across in the forest, its centre open to the sky above a pond.

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1994

Nagi Museum of Contemporary Art (Nagi MOCA, 奈義町現代美術館)

🇯🇵 Nagi, Okayama Prefecture

Three rooms named Sun, Moon and Earth, each aligned on an axis drawn from the site: north-south, the mid-autumn moon, the summit of Mount Nagi.

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1994

Nariwa Museum

🇯🇵 Takahashi, Okayama

A bare-concrete museum whose ramped approach, blind until its turn, suddenly opens onto a pond and a hillside, between the stone walls of a former lord's residence.

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1994

Osaka Prefectural Chikatsu Asuka Museum (大阪府立近つ飛鳥博物館)

🇯🇵 Kanan, Osaka Prefecture

A stepped museum from which the "Tower of Yomi" rises, designed beside a park of burial mounds, which earned Ando the Japan Art Grand Prize.

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1994

Suntory Museum (Osaka Culturarium at Tempozan)

🇯🇵 Minato-ku, Osaka

An inverted-cone drum and two rectangular volumes in front of a stepped plaza that opens onto Osaka Bay.

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1995 · 2012

Asahi Group Oyamazaki Villa Museum of Art

🇯🇵 Ōyamazaki, Kyoto Prefecture

A Tudor-style villa at the foot of Mount Tennōzan, to which Tadao Ando added a half-buried cylindrical gallery for Monet's Water Lilies, then a concrete pavilion tucked among the trees on the site of the former orchid greenhouse.

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1995

Benesse House Oval (ベネッセハウス オーバル)

🇯🇵 Naoshima, Kagawa Prefecture

Only six rooms, on a hill reached by monorail from the museum, facing the Seto Inland Sea.

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1995

Harima Kōgen Higashi Primary School (播磨高原東小学校)

🇯🇵 Tatsuno, Hyōgo

A primary school and a junior high school designed together by Ando, at the two ends of an east-west axis that runs through a plaza.

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1995

Kanazu Elementary School, Kahoku (かほく市立金津小学校)

🇯🇵 Kahoku, Ishikawa Prefecture

A public elementary school in Ishikawa that Tadao Ando designed with the aim of raising children who think for themselves.

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1995

Museum of Gojō Culture and its Annex

🇯🇵 Gojō, Nara Prefecture

A local-history museum housed in a semi-underground cylinder clad in galvanised steel, around a circular plaza where visitors look up at the sky.

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1995

Nagaragawa Convention Center (長良川国際会議場)

🇯🇵 Gifu, Gifu Prefecture

A square atrium under four skylights, a spiral staircase and a rooftop garden meant to bring the Nagara River and Mount Kinka into the architecture.

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1996

Ayabe Industrial Park Exchange Plaza (綾部工業団地・交流プラザ)

🇯🇵 Ayabe, Kyoto Prefecture

An exchange centre designed by Tadao Ando for an industrial park, buried in the slope and opening wide onto a regulating pond.

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1996

Gallery Chiisaime (ギャラリー小さい芽)

🇯🇵 Nishinomiya, Hyōgo

A concrete gallery built on the plot of a house destroyed in the 1995 earthquake, conceived as a memorial.

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1996

Nomi House, Townhouse in Hirano (平野区の町屋―能見邸)

🇯🇵 Hirano-ku, Osaka

A walled square two storeys high, open onto courtyards, in an old and densely built district of Osaka.

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1997

Akino Fuku Museum, Hamamatsu (浜松市秋野不矩美術館)

🇯🇵 Hamamatsu (Tenryū Ward, Shizuoka Prefecture)

A roof of stone slabs, walls of straw-mixed mortar, and galleries where the paintings are seen shoeless.

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1997

Harima Kōgen Higashi Junior High School (播磨高原東中学校)

🇯🇵 Tatsuno, Hyōgo

A junior high school at the east end of an axis it shares with the neighbouring primary school; Ando also drew its emblem.

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1997

Koumi Kōgen Museum of Art

🇯🇵 Koumi, Nagano Prefecture

An Ando museum in exposed reinforced concrete on the Matsubara-ko plateau, at the foot of the Yatsugatake, with its own three-level lookout.

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1997

Miho Museum

🇯🇵 Kōka (Shigaraki), Shiga Prefecture

A museum about 80% buried in the mountainside, reached by a walkway of weeping cherry trees, a tunnel and a bridge.

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1997

TOTO Seminar House (now TOTO Seawind Awaji, TOTOシーウィンド淡路)

🇯🇵 Awaji, Hyōgo Prefecture

A hotel set into a slope of about 45°, whose rooms, by Ando's wish, have no view of the sea.

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1997

Yokogurayama Natural Forest Museum

🇯🇵 Ochi, Kōchi Prefecture

An Ando museum designed to be covered by the forest one day, at the foot of a mountain rich in fossils.

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1998

Akiyoshidai International Art Village (秋吉台国際芸術村)

🇯🇵 Mine, Yamaguchi Prefecture

A village of small buildings scattered over a slope between low hills, which Isozaki likened to an archipelago.

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1998

Daikoku Denki Headquarters Building, Sakashita (ダイコク電機 本部ビル)

🇯🇵 Sakashita, Kasugai, Aichi Prefecture

An office building in exposed concrete with curved surfaces, nicknamed "Big Ship".

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1998

Red Hat Hiroki Oda Museum (赤い帽子 織田廣喜ミュージアム)

🇯🇵 Hino, Shiga Prefecture

A museum by Tadao Ando, standing beside a pond at the back of the play area of an agricultural park.

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1998

Setouchi Retreat Aonagi (formerly Elleair Square Matsuyama)

🇯🇵 Matsuyama, Ehime Prefecture

A company guesthouse by Ando, partly a museum until 2015, now a seven-suite hotel on a hill facing the Seto Inland Sea.

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1998

Watanabe Junichi Museum of Literature

🇯🇵 Sapporo, Hokkaidō

A museum devoted to a writer, whose reinforced-concrete building by Tadao Ando takes as its image a swan standing on one raised leg in pure white snow.

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1999

Asahi Shimbun Okayama Bureau (朝日新聞社岡山総局)

🇯🇵 Okayama (Kita-ku), Okayama Prefecture

A newspaper bureau in exposed concrete and frosted glass, whose balance of light and shade brings a museum to mind.

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1999

Awaji Yumebutai International Conference Center (兵庫県立淡路夢舞台国際会議場)

🇯🇵 Awaji, Hyōgo Prefecture

A conference centre "hidden in the forest", in bare concrete, natural stone and Awaji roof tiles, with a tea room at the end of a gallery that crosses a pond.

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1999

Church of the Light Sunday School hall (光の教会 日曜学校)

🇯🇵 Ibaraki, Osaka Prefecture

A hall of pale wood, built after the 1995 earthquake in place of the parish's first church, which keeps a model of the chapel.

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1999

Minamidera (南寺)

🇯🇵 Honmura, Naoshima, Kagawa Prefecture

A building drawn by Ando to the dimensions of a James Turrell work: visitors feel their way through the dark until a glow appears.

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1999

Nishinomiya Shell Museum (西宮市貝類館)

🇯🇵 Nishinomiya, Hyōgo Prefecture

A shell museum whose exterior evokes the sail of a yacht, and whose courtyard displays Horie Kenichi's yacht Mermaid IV.

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1999

Rokko Housing III (六甲の集合住宅III)

🇯🇵 Nada-ku, Kobe (Hyōgo)

One hundred and seventy-four reinforced-concrete homes stepped along the slope: the third and largest phase of the Rokko complex.

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1999

Shimane Art Museum (島根県立美術館)

🇯🇵 Matsue, Shimane Prefecture

A large titanium roof, kept low on the shore of Lake Shinji so as not to hide the mountains in the background.

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2000

Awaji Green Kan (あわじグリーン館)

🇯🇵 Awaji, Hyōgo Prefecture

A greenhouse-museum some twenty metres high where rare plants and works of art answer one another, in the great complex Ando designed at Awaji.

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2000

Awaji Yumebutai (淡路夢舞台)

🇯🇵 Awaji, Hyōgo Prefecture

A terraced garden by Tadao Ando built on a former earth-quarrying site: a hundred stepped flower beds, a gallery of light, a gallery of shadow and a theatre whose stage floats on a pond.

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2000

Fukuoka Camera Museum (ミュゼふくおかカメラ館)

🇯🇵 Takaoka, Toyama Prefecture

Antique cameras in all-glass cases that can be seen from every side, in a concrete building that puts light and shadow to work.

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2000

Grand Nikko Awaji (グランドニッコー淡路)

🇯🇵 Awaji, Hyōgo Prefecture

The hotel of Awaji Yumebutai, from Tadao Ando's practice: opened in 2000 under the Westin name, renamed Grand Nikko in 2020.

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2000

Hyakudan-en (Hundred-Step Garden)

🇯🇵 Awaji, Hyōgo Prefecture

One hundred flower beds in tiers along the slope, facing Osaka Bay, planted with daisy-family flowers from around the world.

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2000

Toyosaka Municipal Library (新潟市立豊栄図書館)

🇯🇵 Kita-ku, Niigata

A square and a circle of exposed concrete: the children's room is round, its walls lined with shelves.

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2001

Aomori Contemporary Art Centre (国際芸術センター青森, ACAC)

🇯🇵 Aomori, Aomori Prefecture

An art centre buried in the forest at the foot of the Hakkoda Mountains, which Ando conceived as “unseen architecture”.

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2001 · 2002

Hyōgo Prefectural Museum of Art and Kobe Waterfront Plaza (兵庫県立美術館, 神戸市水際広場)

🇯🇵 Kobe (Chūō-ku), Hyōgo Prefecture

A museum of granite and glass set on 190 seismic bearings, facing the sea, built to symbolise Kobe's cultural renewal after the 1995 earthquake.

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2001

Nature Spa Takarazuka (ナチュールスパ宝塚)

🇯🇵 Takarazuka, Hyōgo

A municipal hot-spring bathhouse in bare concrete, in the heart of Takarazuka, where bathers had two waters of different colours.

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2001

Osaka Prefectural Sayamaike Museum

🇯🇵 Ōsakasayama, Osaka Prefecture

A block of exposed concrete by Ando that holds the cross-section of a 15 m-high embankment, whose lower half dates from the Asuka and Nara periods.

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2001

Shiba Ryōtarō Memorial Museum

🇯🇵 Higashiōsaka, Osaka

A library eleven metres high over three levels, designed by Tadao Ando beside the house of the writer Shiba Ryōtarō, and a garden of broadleaf trees from which his desk can be seen through the window.

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2002

Hiroshima National Peace Memorial Hall for the Atomic Bomb Victims (国立広島原爆死没者追悼平和祈念館)

🇯🇵 Hiroshima

A memorial that sinks into the ground: a descending ramp leads to a cylindrical hall whose wall carries a panorama of the city after the explosion.

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2002 · 2015

International Library of Children's Literature (国際子ども図書館)

🇯🇵 Ueno Park, Taito-ku, Tokyo

A brick building of 1906 cut through by two glass boxes by Ando, and a second, glass-fronted arched building that closes the courtyard with it.

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2002

Ishikawa Nishida Kitarō Museum of Philosophy

🇯🇵 Kahoku, Ishikawa Prefecture

A museum of philosophy set partly underground in a hillside facing the Sea of Japan, its maze-like interior built to make visitors think.

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2002

Kinjō Junior High School, Kaga (加賀市立錦城中学校)

🇯🇵 Kaga, Ishikawa Prefecture

An elliptical block opening onto a large central void crossed by three bridges.

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2002

Nadahama Garden Baden (灘浜ガーデンバーデン)

🇯🇵 Nada-ku, Kobe (Hyōgo)

Two ovals, one large and one small, join a park centred on a lawn to a bathing and swimming facility.

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2002

Shikoku Mura Gallery (四国村ギャラリー)

🇯🇵 Takamatsu, Kagawa

A bare-concrete gallery by Tadao Ando in a museum village of old houses, with a stepped water garden below its balcony.

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2003

4×4 House (4m×4mの家)

🇯🇵 Tarumi-ku, Kobe, Hyōgo

A four-level concrete tower whose top-floor room, a cube 4 m on each side, looks out to the Akashi Kaikyō Bridge.

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2003

Noma Kindergarten (野間自由幼稚園)

🇯🇵 Ito, Shizuoka Prefecture

A kindergarten with a curved roof, clad in natural timber inside and out, whose wide terrace serves as a second playground.

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2003

Onomichi City Museum of Art

🇯🇵 Onomichi, Hiroshima

A municipal museum from 1980 that Tadao Ando renovated and extended with a new wing of exposed concrete and glass, now its entrance, on Senkō-ji hill.

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2003

Osaka Memorial Park (大阪メモリアルパーク)

🇯🇵 Daito, Osaka Prefecture

A garden cemetery on the slopes of Mount Ikoma whose landscape plan and rest house were supervised by Tadao Ando.

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2003

Rock Field factory in Kawasaki (ロック・フィールド 玉川ファクトリー)

🇯🇵 Kawasaki (Takatsu-ku), Kanagawa Prefecture

A factory conceived as "a big refrigerator in the city centre", in the middle of a residential district.

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2003

Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media, YCAM (山口情報芸術センター)

🇯🇵 Yamaguchi, Yamaguchi Prefecture

A rippling roof that echoes the ridgeline of the nearby mountains, over a 170-metre building where theatre, gallery, cinema and library stand side by side.

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2004

21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa (金沢21世紀美術館)

🇯🇵 Hirosaka, Kanazawa, Ishikawa Prefecture

A glass circle 113 metres across, with no front or back, that can be entered from every side.

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2004

Apartment building in Sengawa (シティハウス仙川)

🇯🇵 Sengawa, Chofu (Tokyo)

A concrete-and-glass apartment block, one of six Ando buildings lined up along a single street in Sengawa.

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2004

Chichu Art Museum

🇯🇵 Naoshima, Kagawa

A museum almost entirely buried in a hillside on Naoshima, where Monet's Water Lilies are seen by daylight alone, alongside spaces by James Turrell and Walter De Maria.

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2004

Gunma Insect World Insect Observation Hall (県立ぐんま昆虫の森 昆虫観察館)

🇯🇵 Kiryū, Gunma Prefecture

A glass roof cut from a sphere spans exhibition rooms buried in a slope; part of the space beneath it forms a large butterfly greenhouse.

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2004

Housing and retail building in Sengawa (仙川アベニュー・アネックスⅡ)

🇯🇵 Sengawa, Chofu (Tokyo)

A building of apartments and shops, one of six Ando buildings lined up along a single street in Sengawa.

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2004

Ichinohe South Elementary School (一戸町立一戸南小学校)

🇯🇵 Ichinohe, Iwate Prefecture

A municipal elementary school in Iwate whose new building, designed by Tadao Ando, was completed in March 2004.

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2004

Kashimo Community Centre (加子母村ふれあいコミュニティセンター)

🇯🇵 Kashimo, Nakatsugawa (Gifu Prefecture)

A village community centre built by Tadao Ando with the region's timber, under glulam trusses produced locally.

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2004

Kyushu National Museum (九州国立博物館)

🇯🇵 Dazaifu, Fukuoka Prefecture

A barrel-shaped volume 160 metres by 80, under a blue roof of coloured titanium.

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2004

Rock Field Kobe Head Office and Factory (ロック・フィールド 神戸ヘッドオフィス／神戸ファクトリー)

🇯🇵 Higashinada, Kobe, Hyōgo Prefecture

A logistics warehouse 160 m wide, left unused after the 1995 earthquake, turned into a factory and offices instead of being demolished.

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2004

Set for Wozzeck (Saito Kinen Festival Matsumoto)

🇯🇵 Matsumoto, Nagano

The set Tadao Ando designed for Alban Berg's Wozzeck, in the opening year of the theatre that has hosted the festival's operas ever since.

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2004

Takasugi-an, the too-high teahouse (高過庵)

🇯🇵 Chino, Nagano Prefecture

A Fujimori teahouse held 6 m off the ground by two chestnut trunks, reached by a ladder on casters.

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2004

Tokyo Art Museum

🇯🇵 Sengawa, Chofu (Tokyo)

An art museum opened in 2004 on Sengawa's "Ando Street", lined on both sides with buildings designed by Tadao Ando.

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2005

4×4 House II (4m×4mの家II)

🇯🇵 Tarumi-ku, Kobe, Hyōgo

The timber twin of the 4×4 House, the same in form but black, now demolished.

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2005

Lamune Onsen (ラムネ温泉館)

🇯🇵 Taketa, Ōita Prefecture

A hand-dented copper roof crowned with a pine, above walls striped with charred cedar and lime.

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2005

Picture Book Museum "Mado no soto no sono mata mukō"

🇯🇵 Iwaki, Fukushima Prefecture

A void three storeys high where five floor levels meet through seven staircases, facing the Pacific.

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2005

hhstyle.com/casa Store (hhstyle.com／casa)

🇯🇵 Jingumae, Shibuya, Tokyo

A building clad in black steel plates on Harajuku's Cat Street.

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2006

Benesse House Park and Beach (ベネッセハウス パーク／ビーチ)

🇯🇵 Naoshima, Kagawa Prefecture

The Park, one of Ando's few timber buildings, and the Beach, a few steps from the shore, both opened in 2006.

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2006

Koshino House Guest House (小篠邸ゲストハウス)

🇯🇵 Ashiya, Hyōgo Prefecture

The bedroom wing of the Koshino House, turned by Ando into an independent two-storey guest house, in a house that has become an art gallery.

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2006

Omotesando Hills

🇯🇵 Jingumae, Shibuya (Tokyo)

A shopping centre largely buried so as to stay at about the height of the zelkova trees of Omotesandō avenue, built around a six-level void circled by a 700-metre spiral ramp almost as steep as the avenue itself.

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2006

Saka no Ue no Kumo Museum

🇯🇵 Matsuyama, Ehime

A triangular building that widens by 5 degrees toward the sky, its floors linked by one continuous slope, to which Ando added a glass-walled children's library in 2025.

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2006

Sakura Hiroba (さくら広場), the cherry-tree plazas

🇯🇵 Kadoma and Toyonaka (Osaka Prefecture), Narashino (Chiba Prefecture), Chigasaki (Kanagawa Prefecture)

Four cherry-tree parks designed by Tadao Ando on Panasonic land: 505 Yoshino cherry trees at Makuhari, about 190 at Kadoma, on the former site of the group's head office.

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2006

Shin-Sakuranomiya Bridge

🇯🇵 Osaka (Kita and Miyakojima wards)

A slender steel arch, welded on site, built next to the 1930 "silver bridge" to make a pair with it.

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2007

21_21 DESIGN SIGHT

🇯🇵 Tokyo Midtown, Minato (Tokyo)

A design museum almost entirely buried, under a 54-metre steel roof conceived as a single folded sheet, drawn from Issey Miyake's theme of "a piece of cloth".

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2007

Commercial building in Sengawa (仙川デルタ・スタジオ)

🇯🇵 Sengawa, Chofu (Tokyo)

A building of shops, one of six that Ando's office designed along a single street in Sengawa.

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2007

Nagao Municipal Elementary School (神戸市立長尾小学校)

🇯🇵 Kita Ward, Kobe, Hyōgo Prefecture

The building Tadao Ando designed for a Kobe school that left its home village for another district in 2007, keeping its name.

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2007

Taigaku-in temple, Hadano (太岳院)

🇯🇵 Hadano, Kanagawa Prefecture

A temple founded in 1541 whose main hall was rebuilt in 2007 to a design by Tadao Ando.

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2007

Yonago East Hospital (米子東病院)

🇯🇵 Yodoe, Yonago, Tottori Prefecture

A concrete hospital facing Mount Daisen and the sea, whose gallery can be walked in a loop.

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2008

Duchesne Hall, Sacred Heart School, Tokyo (デュシェーンホール)

🇯🇵 Shirokane, Minato-ku, Tokyo

A foyer opening onto the campus trees and a circular hall, slipped between existing gymnasiums.

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2008

Fukutake Hall, University of Tokyo (情報学環・福武ホール)

🇯🇵 Bunkyō, Tokyo

A long building on a 100 by 15 m site at the edge of the campus, whose concrete wall, the "Thinking Wall", is meant to leave room for students to meet.

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2008

Naniwabashi Station (entrances)

🇯🇵 Nakanoshima, Kita-ku, Osaka

Curved walls that rise out of the ground to become the roof of the entrances, on the axis leading to the Osaka City Central Public Hall.

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2008

Ryūō Station (竜王駅)

🇯🇵 Kai, Yamanashi Prefecture

A fully glazed public passage linking the north and south sides of the station, with views of Mount Fuji, the Yatsugatake range and the Southern Alps.

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2008

Sengawa Theater, Chofu (調布市せんがわ劇場)

🇯🇵 Sengawa, Chofu (Tokyo)

A municipal theatre of 121 seats designed by Tadao Ando, on Sengawa's "Ando Street", in the same building as a nursery and a community room.

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2008

Shibuya Station (Fukutoshin and Toyoko lines)

🇯🇵 Shibuya, Tokyo

An underground station conceived as an egg: a large oval opening lets you see the trains from above and lets air circulate naturally.

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2008

Towada Art Center (十和田市現代美術館)

🇯🇵 Towada, Aomori Prefecture

Independent galleries, "houses for art", scattered across the site and joined by glass corridors.

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2009

Kobe Kaisei Hospital (神戸海星病院)

🇯🇵 Nada Ward, Kobe (Hyōgo)

A hospital and a care home whose buildings each draw a gentle arc to follow the foot of Mount Rokko.

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2009

NIWAKA Building (俄ビル)

🇯🇵 Nakagyō-ku, Kyoto

A bare-concrete building designed by Tadao Ando's office that fits in with Kyoto's traditional streets.

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2009

TOPGUN, International Pacific University (環太平洋大学)

🇯🇵 Okayama (Higashi-ku), Okayama Prefecture

A large gate-like building spanning the walk to the clock-tower building, with dojos and a terrace Ando named the "sky dojo".

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2009

Yokohama Local Meteorological Observatory (横浜地方気象台)

🇯🇵 Yokohama (Naka-ku), Kanagawa Prefecture

A 1927 Art Deco building, preserved and extended by an annex matched to the colour of its walls and its tall, narrow windows, on the Yamate hill.

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2010

Atema Forest Hall and Waterside Hall (あてま森と水辺の教室 森のホール 水辺のホール)

🇯🇵 Tokamachi, Niigata Prefecture

Two halls by Tadao Ando in a satoyama landscape: one, designed after a Japanese house, welcomes visitors to the Atema nature school; the other opens an immense window onto the water.

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2010

Chaska Chayamachi (チャスカ茶屋町)

🇯🇵 Chayamachi, Kita-ku, Osaka

A 23-level tower whose tapering tip holds the chapel of a wedding hotel.

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2010

Church of the Light Parsonage (光の教会 牧師館)

🇯🇵 Ibaraki, Osaka Prefecture

Ando's third building for the parish of the Church of the Light, after the chapel and the parish hall.

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2010

Flying Mud Boat (空飛ぶ泥舟)

🇯🇵 Chino, Nagano Prefecture

A tea room with a boat's hull, hung from cables above a field.

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2010

House in Utsubo Park (靱公園の住宅)

🇯🇵 Nishi-ku, Osaka

A long, narrow concrete house, opening wide to the south onto the trees of Utsubo Park.

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2010

Lee Ufan Museum

🇯🇵 Naoshima, Kagawa

A semi-underground museum in a valley on Naoshima, born of the collaboration between Tadao Ando and Lee Ufan, and the first museum in the world devoted to the artist.

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2010

Teshima Art Museum (豊島美術館)

🇯🇵 Teshima, Tonosho, Kagawa Prefecture

A droplet-shaped concrete shell with no pillars at all, pierced by two openings that let in wind and light.

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2011

Hiroshi Senju Museum Karuizawa (軽井沢千住博美術館)

🇯🇵 Karuizawa, Nagano Prefecture

A single gently sloping room whose floor follows the lie of the land, with four glass-walled courtyards planted with coloured foliage.

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2011

Kaminoge Station (Tokyu Oimachi Line)

🇯🇵 Setagaya, Tokyo

A Tokyo station whose 120 m roof joins its two buildings above the road, with a circular opening at its centre.

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2011

Museum of the Light (光の美術館)

🇯🇵 Hokuto, Yamanashi Prefecture

A compact museum of bare concrete lit by the sun alone, with no artificial lighting at all.

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2012 · 2013

Akita Museum of Art

🇯🇵 Akita, Akita Prefecture

A museum built on triangular motifs, designed to show Tsuguharu Foujita's mural of more than twenty metres, with a spiral staircase that has neither a pillar nor any support from the wall.

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2012

House in Takamatsu (高松の住宅)

🇯🇵 Takamatsu, Kagawa Prefecture

A corner house in the middle of Takamatsu, bright and open to light and wind while protecting the family's privacy.

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2012

Oiki Ladies Clinic 2 (老木レディスクリニック2)

🇯🇵 Izumi, Osaka Prefecture

A triangular building that holds a water garden and carries a garden on its roof, set on an embankment among suburban hills.

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2013

ANDO MUSEUM

🇯🇵 Naoshima, Kagawa

A village house about a hundred years old whose exterior has been kept, and which holds a box of bare concrete lit by daylight alone.

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2013

House in Ashiya (芦屋の住宅)

🇯🇵 Ashiya, Hyōgo Prefecture

On a site 7 m wide, a tube-shaped volume set at first-floor level, lit by a double rooflight slit and a 7.2 m strip window.

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2013

Mikawa-Tahara Station (Atsumi Line)

🇯🇵 Tahara, Aichi Prefecture

A terminus station shaped like a fan, attached to the end of the platforms, that also houses an exchange space for the city.

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2013

Okayama Shinkin Bank Uchisange Square (おかやま信用金庫 内山下スクエア)

🇯🇵 Uchisange, Kita Ward, Okayama

A bare-concrete lift lobby rising through three levels, lit only by daylight and slit lighting, inside a bank branch.

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2013

PHILOSOPHIA, International Pacific University (環太平洋大学)

🇯🇵 Okayama (Higashi-ku), Okayama Prefecture

A teaching building hollowed by a large interior void, so that one feels as if in the midst of nature.

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2013

The Great Tree of the City, green façade of the Osaka Marubiru (都市の大樹)

🇯🇵 Umeda, Kita-ku, Osaka

The first six levels of a cylindrical tower in Osaka covered in climbing plants, like a giant tree.

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2013

Umekita Plaza (うめきた広場)

🇯🇵 Kita-ku, Osaka

A square of about 10,000 m2 facing the north exit of Osaka Station, whose design was supervised by Tadao Ando's office.

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2013

Wall of Hope (希望の壁)

🇯🇵 Shin Umeda City complex, Kita-ku, Osaka

A wall of greenery 9 m high and 78 m long, whose look changes with the seasons.

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2014

Church in Hiroo (広尾の教会)

🇯🇵 Hiroo, Shibuya (Tokyo)

An isosceles triangle with a 12 m base, its apex split by a slit that lets the light in.

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2015

Hill of the Buddha (頭大仏殿, Atama Daibutsuden)

🇯🇵 Sapporo, Hokkaido

A 13.5 m stone Buddha covered by a lavender hill, with only its head showing until you cross a tunnel to reach it.

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2015

La Collina Ōmihachiman, main shop "Grass Roof" (草屋根)

🇯🇵 Ōmihachiman, Shiga Prefecture

A large roof entirely covered in turf, in front of Mount Hachimanyama: the work earned Terunobu Fujimori the Japan Art Academy Prize.

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2015

Towada Education Plaza (十和田市教育プラザ)

🇯🇵 Towada, Aomori Prefecture

A long, low library dotted with sunrooms flooded with light, where people come to talk as much as to read.

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2016 · 1926

Kitakaro Sapporo Honkan (北菓楼札幌本館)

🇯🇵 Chuo Ward, Sapporo, Hokkaidō

A brick library of 1926 of which Ando kept only the street-facing walls and the entrance hall, to build a three-storey-high void under white cross vaults.

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2016

Miyako Irahara School (みやこ伊良原学園)

🇯🇵 Irahara, Miyako (Fukuoka Prefecture)

A timber school by Tadao Ando built around a courtyard, bringing together the Irahara elementary and junior high schools after a dam forced the elementary school to move.

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2016

Mosaic Tile Museum Tajimi (多治見市モザイクタイルミュージアム)

🇯🇵 Tajimi, Gifu Prefecture

Earth walls rising from a bowl-shaped slope, set with broken tiles and tableware, recalling the pit where the clay for tiles is dug.

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2017

House in the Forest, Mitsumasa Anno Museum (森の中の家 安野光雅館)

🇯🇵 Kyotango, Kyoto Prefecture

A long corridor leads to this museum clad in cedar boards, set in a forest planted since 2007.

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2017

Osaka Shoko Shinkin Bank Head Office (大阪商工信用金庫 本店ビル)

🇯🇵 Chuo-ku, Osaka

A building with a triangular upper part on a rectangular base, whose water garden holds Kenji Imai's large mosaic relief, remade with 3D techniques.

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2019

Kumamoto Station

🇯🇵 Nishi-ku, Kumamoto

A facade that takes up the curve of Kumamoto Castle's stone walls, and platform roofs on a timber frame.

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2020

Jingū-dōri Park Toilet (The Tokyo Toilet)

🇯🇵 Shibuya, Tokyo

A round pavilion of vertical louvers under a large overhanging roof, conceived as a shelter from the rain.

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2020

Nakanoshima Children's Book Forest (こども本の森 中之島)

🇯🇵 Kita Ward, Osaka (Nakanoshima Park)

A three-storey void lined with books from floor to ceiling, crossed by a staircase and bridges, inside a concrete arc along the Dōjima-gawa.

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2021

Tōno Children's Book Forest (こども本の森 遠野)

🇯🇵 Tōno, Iwate Prefecture

A wooden children's library built in the centre of Tōno on the site of a town house of 1900, whose exterior it reproduces and some of whose beams and pillars it reuses.

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2022

Kobe Children's Book Forest (こども本の森 神戸)

🇯🇵 Chuo Ward, Kobe, Hyōgo (Higashi Yūenchi Park)

Walls of books under a void 9 m high, and a cylindrical rest room with a round skylight, furnished with church chairs, in a park that keeps the memory of the 1995 earthquake.

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2022

Marufukuro (丸福樓)

🇯🇵 Shimogyō-ku, Kyoto

Nintendo's former head office, on the site where the company was born, turned hotel with a new exposed-concrete building whose design Ando supervised.

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2022

Valley Gallery

🇯🇵 Naoshima, Kagawa

A small building inspired by a shrine, with double concrete walls and a steel roof pierced by openings, set in a valley on Naoshima, where rain, wind and light come in just as they are.

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2023

Kodomari Fuji, guesthouse in Fujimi (小泊Fuji)

🇯🇵 Fujimi, Nagano Prefecture

A single-storey guesthouse with a copper roof planted with a cherry tree and charred-cedar walls, rented to one group at a time.

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2024

Kumamoto Children's Book Forest (こども本の森 熊本)

🇯🇵 Chuo-ku, Kumamoto (beside the prefectural library)

A two-storey building whose walls are all bookshelves, under a lattice ceiling of local cypress, given to the prefecture to support recovery from the 2016 earthquake.

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2025

Matsuyama Children's Book Forest (こども本の森 松山)

🇯🇵 Matsuyama, Ehime Prefecture

An oval reading room wrapped in glass, lifted on pilotis beside the museum's triangle, which Tadao Ando gave to the city.

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2025

The University of Osaka and The Nippon Foundation Center for Infectious Diseases (大阪大学・日本財団 感染症センター)

🇯🇵 Suita, Osaka Prefecture

An ellipse of ten storeys above ground, conceived by Tadao Ando around the theme of a "Spaceship Earth" facing infectious diseases.

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2026

Children's Book Forest Sapporo – Hokkaido University (こども本の森 札幌・北大)

🇯🇵 Kita Ward, Sapporo, Hokkaidō (Hokkaido University campus, near the South Gate)

A single-storey steel library with curved walls and cylindrical bookcases rising to the ceiling, set among the big trees of the campus.

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