Towards Light

Tadao Ando is one of the most celebrated architects of our time. Winner of the Pritzker Prize and numerous other international awards, his bold, concrete buildings and their interplay with light, shadow, and nature have become emblematic symbols of the modern world, blending modernist design with Eastern spirituality from his native Japan.

Now, at eighty-five, Ando looks back on a lifetime of making. Born in a working-class family living amongst the ruins of postwar Osaka, he could not afford a university education. After a brief stint as a professional boxer, he taught himself architecture at night from books, founded a practice in a cheap rented room, and, after years of uncertainty, persistence, and belief, eventually saw his 'concrete poetry' built around the world.

Towards Light, Ando's first through-written book to be translated into English, explores the stories behind his greatest buildings and shares wisdom drawn from pivotal moments in Ando's life. Ando is a guide to both the granular demands of creative work - clients, budgets, and the importance of using your own tools - and the exhilaration of inspiration, the power of art and music to spark new ideas, and how to keep the imagination open.

Towards Light is a grounded guide to a creative life as it is actually lived, for anyone committed to their work and to the long process of creating something meaningful.

About the Author

Tadao Ando is one of the most renowned contemporary Japanese architects. He has designed many notable buildings around the world, including Row House in Sumiyoshi, Osaka, 1976, which gave him the Annual Prize of Architectural Institute of Japan in 1979, and the Church of the Light in Osaka, 1989. Among the many awards he has received are The Pritzker Architecture Prize in 1995, Gold Medal of the American Institute of Architects in 2002, and Grande Ufficiale dell'Ordine della Stella d'Italia in 2015. He received the Japanese Order of Culture in 2010.

Polly Barton is a literary translator and writer. Her translations from Japanese to English include Butter by Asako Yuzuki and There's No Such Thing as an Easy Job by Kikuko Tsumura. Her translation of Hunchback by Saou Ichikawa was longlisted for the International Booker Prize 2025. Barton has also written the books Fifty Sounds and Porn: An Oral History, and her debut novel What Am I, A Deer? is out in 2026.