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Over the past three decades, Ando has created such well-known works as the Church on the Water, Rokko Housing One, the Naoshima Contemporary Art Museum, the Children's Museum at Himeji, and the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts. In all of Ando's works, light is a controlling factor.

"The aim of my design is to impart rich meaning to spaces through natural elements and the many aspects of daily life," says Ando. "In other words, I try to relate the fixed form and compositional method to the kind of life that will be lived in the given space and to local regional society. My mainstay in selecting the solutions to these problems is my independent architectural theory ordered on the basis of a geometry of simple forms, my own ideas of life, and my emotions as a Japanese."

Ando's signature smooth-concrete walls, punctuated rhythmically by the vestiges of form ties, derive from his fascination with the art of making. In his work, this universal material of the post-industrial age is formed with the care and craft of an earlier time, to serve as both structure and finished surface. His radically innovative use of the material defines spaces in unique new ways that are at once sublime and humane.

Ando's body of work expresses his concern for the culture of architecture and the values it supports. In their material quality, simple geometry, and ability to distill nature to an essence of itself, Ando's buildings perpetuate the serenity and clarity of traditional Japanese architecture.

While employing the material and formal vocabulary of their own time, Ando's buildings stand in resistance to the increasing commodification and transience of architecture around them. As AIA Gold Medalist, Ando joins the ranks of such luminaries as Thomas Jefferson, Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier, Louis Kahn, and Cesar Pelli. Ando will receive the medal at the 2002 American Architectural Foundation Accent on Architecture gala on March 1, 2002, in Washington, D.C.

A Commitment to Community

The architecture of Firm Award-winning TVS springs from a corporate culture that "emphasizes collaboration, continuity, and depth and breadth of achievement and expertise," say Lugean L. Chilcote, FAIA, and Thompson E. Penney, FAIA, who nominated the Atlanta firm. "The focus at TVS is its emphasis on people, the human scale, and human experience that are the base on which every building is conceived."

A general practice with international experience in planning, architecture, and interior design, TVS makes a specialty of convention and public assembly facilities design. The innovation that characterizes TVS design has been recognized by nearly 200 design awards over its three decades of practice.

Founded in 1968 as a three-person design studio, TVS quickly established itself as a leading firm in Atlanta with the design of the Omni/CNN Center and the Georgia World Congress Center. TVS has since grown to become a significant force in national and international architecture, with over 240 million people directly experiencing TVS-designed environments each year.

Though now considerably larger than at its three-person beginning, TVS remains an employee-owned firm with a commitment to excellence in design, client satisfaction, and a concern for the human impact of architecture. The firm also retains a commitment to its local community, expressed through pro bono work ranging from acting as a leader in annual United Way drives to building Habitat for Humanity houses.

To bring clients the economy of scale of a large firm while facilitating the human connections of a smaller one, TVS is organized around a system of design studios. Each largely autonomous studio is responsible for overseeing its projects from conception through completion.

Over the last ten years, TVS has brought issues of sustainable design to the foreground of its practice. Through its studio structure, in-house committees, continuing education programs, and resource groups, TVS prides itself on being able to design to whatever level of environmental sensitivity its clients envision.

The firm's sustainable design services emphasize to clients the economic as well as the environmental advantages of the U.S. Green Building Council's LEED certification and other opportunities for sustainable design.

Their portfolio of award-winning projects includes the Woodruff Arts Center Renovation, the Philadelphia Convention Center, McCormick Place Expansion, Salt Palace Convention Center, and the United Parcel Service World Headquarters.

With these awards, new mantles of architectural leadership settle on the shoulders of Tadao Ando and TVS. The world will be looking to them as positive examplars, creators of new architecture to embody art and community service.

Katharine Logan is an assistant editor of ArchitectureWeek.

The Eychaner/ Lee House by Tadao Ando. Photo: Courtesy Tadao Ando Architect's sketch of the Eychaner/ Lee House. Image: Tadao Ando Jun Portisland Building by Tadao Ando. Photo: Courtesy Tadao Ando Georgia International Plaza, Atlanta, by Thompson, Ventulett, Stainback and Associates (TVS), winner of the 2002 AIA Firm Award. Photo: Brian Gassel/TVS The Pennsylvania Convention Center, Philadelphia, by TVS. Photo: Brian Gassel/TVS The Pennsylvania Convention Center. Photo: Brian Gassel/TVS The Pennsylvania Convention Center. Photo: Brian Gassel/TVS   Click on thumbnail images to view full-size pictures.