Tadao Ando’s Curved Concrete Ito House Asks $7M in Tokyo
The three-family property by the Pritzker Prize–winning architect features outdoor courtyards protected by the home’s arcing facade.
The three-family property by the Pritzker Prize–winning architect features outdoor courtyards protected by the home’s arcing facade.
A self-taught master of modern architecture, Tadao Ando is world-renowned for his minimalist style, often expressed in massive concrete forms that play with natural light to create surprising interior spaces. Examples include the 1989 Church of the Light in his native Osaka, Japan—which features an ethereal sanctuary illuminated by a cross-shaped light well cut through the concrete wall—as well as the 1990 Ito House in Tokyo, which is among his few residential commissions and was recently put up for sale by its owners.
Ito House by renowned Japanese architect and Pritzker Prize winner Tadao Ando hides behind an anonymous, arcing concrete facade in the Setagaya neighborhood of Tokyo, Japan.
Photo courtesy of Sotheby’s International Realty, Japan
The nearly 5,500-square-foot structure includes three multi-floor units positioned between several courtyard gardens. The overall plan is also based on a series of overlapping arcs and rectangular spaces that create specific relationships with natural light.
Photo courtesy of Sotheby’s International Realty, Japan
An extensive case study in the February 1990 edition of Progressive Architecture, published as Ito House was being completed, described Ando’s work as reductivist but far from simple. "The geometry of [his] interior plans, typically involving rectangular systems cut through by curved or angled walls, can look rather arbitrary and abstract. What one finds in the actual buildings are spaces carefully adjusted to human occupancy," the article notes. Ando’s prodigious use of solid concrete—demonstrated by Ito House—allows him to "seal his building[s] behind anonymous walls" and "open them to internal courts."
An apartment on the middle floor of Ito House is embraced by the curved wall. Sunlight enters from the sides and above via narrow windows in the courtyard and along the roof.
Photo courtesy of Sotheby’s International Realty, Japan
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