Concrete values IN PARALLEL WITH HIS EXHIBITION AT THE CENTRE POMPIDOU, THE ILLUSTRIOUS JAPANESE ARCHITECT TADAO ANDO MET US IN OSAKA TO TALK ABOUT ART, LOYALTY, TRUST… His office is a labyrinth of booksnever really left. His creations and architectural models. The keep his presence here alive, former line the walls by the thou-as revealed in the spectacular sands while the latter fill everyexhibition devoted to his work horizontal surface. This is whereat the Centre Pompidou in Paris. Tadao Ando spends most of “Originally, this was a house,” he his time, when he isn’t travelingrecounts. “I built it for a couple the world to supervise projects and their child. But then they had in Paris, Venice, Detroit… “For twins, and the father wondered many years I worked non-stop if the space was big enough for all day long,” he says, “but nowfive. In the end, I bought it for my I understand the importance of offi ce.” taking breaks. Ando’s entire world is After lunch encapsulated here, starting with “Ajprès le déjeuner, every day I take his most famous buildings. All of an hour off to them represent a long-term effort e m’arrête une reread a book based on loyalty and mutual whose real trust. “Architecture is never a solo heure pour relire meaning may undertaking,” he explains. “In the have escapedme the firstend, it’s the client who decideswhat will be done.” For theun livre dont time.”We are in “museum island” of Naoshima,no doubt the most importantle sens m’avait Osaka, the project of his career, the client échappé la city where he was Soichiro Fukutake. “It started première fois.” started out, and in 1988,” Ando says. “So far which he has I have built ten structures there, > AIR FRANCE MADAME / 205