Icon and iconoclast

It hasn't been yet, though, has it?

The Japanese are bad at conveying their ideas overseas. This is not a problem of language — as we are often told. It's deeper than that: It's a problem at the core of the Japanese psyche.

These days the world is becoming more and more linked due to globalization, but Japan is being left behind. Japan seems to think it will be all right on its own. But the reality nowadays is that when the American economy crashes, the rest of the world crashes too. The world really is one now. If nonrenewable fuels are used up it means they're used up for the entire world — it's not just Japan's problem. This means that in future we have to think of ourselves as inhabitants of Planet Earth — not as citizens of a country. A larger vision is required. It's not enough to make one building that doesn't emit carbon dioxide; a complete change of thinking is required, and it will come.

High-flier: Tadao Ando, Japan's leading architect, stands in the atrium of a full-size replica of his 1976 Row House in Osaka now on display at Gallery Ma in Tokyo. YOSHIAKI MIURA PHOTO

You said that the general public in Japan are more demanding than people overseas. Does that mean it is possible to make more experimental architecture overseas?

You can make more adventurous architecture in Japan. The degree of freedom is higher here. It is easier to get permission to build things. In towns in Europe, for example, they won't let you make things that go against the grain — because of laws preserving historical buildings and views. So in that way, the freedom is greater in Japan.

However, Japanese are like children; they are too free. You need a starting point — an objective starting point for your freedom. Japanese children have freedom without a foundation, freedom without responsibility. You need freedom with responsibility.

What kind of freedom is that?

For freedom with a sense of responsibility, you have to have one eye on the whole as you exercise your freedom. It's not good enough to just have freedom. People should have freedom to think freely, not the freedom to do anything they like. Architecture is the same. It needs to be an architecture that is free, but that is built on the architectural traditions and history — both Japanese and international.

A lot of the jobs you do overseas are renovations, such as the Palazzo Grassi and the Punta della Dogana museum projects on the Grand Canal in Venice. However, the work you do in Japan is mostly new. I guess that is a result of Japan's scrap-and-build approach. Why is there this difference between Japan and the West?

I think it is because after the war Japan wanted to become more American. There was a belief that you just needed to build new things. In Japan, buildings became kinds of commercial merchandise, like other products.

It was because of this that the current rush of condominium development began — build and sell, build and sell, like products.

Of course, architecture will always be partly a product, but it must also be an urban resource. The more you build and sell, then the rate of consumption increases — profit increases — but then you run out of natural resources and you damage the environment.

What are you going to do? It is the government that must think of answers. In Europe, their answer has been to construct their society slowly — not resorting to a system of mass production and mass consumption. Of course, the price they paid was that they haven't developed economically as fast as the United States. Which approach is better? We need to think about this.

Do you think Japan needs stricter laws to preserve historical buildings?

Ando's Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, in Texas, opened in 2002 and combines a glass facade with a concrete core. MITSUO MATSUOKA PHOTO

It depends on the building, of course, but yes, I think it does. It is easier to judge the value of very old buildings. Thirty or 40 years ago, all buildings were made on principles of profitability only, so there are many that are not worth preserving. You need to establish clear criteria to determine historical worth.

Why do you think a European organization would entrust the renovation of an old building in Venice to an architect from Japan, where essentially there is no tradition of renovating buildings?

I'm doing a museum and head office for Giorgio Armani in Milan at the moment. I did a theater for him in 2001. This work also began from the renovation of a 70-year-old factory. He likes to make new things out of old things. He likes customers mixing old clothes with his fashion, too, so his way of thinking is consistent. But, I agree, they needed courage to ask a Japanese to do that work for them. You know, there are a lot of architects in Italy! But, I guess there are some people who think the Japanese sensibility is interesting.

On the other hand, you also work in places like Abu Dhabi, where you are working from a completely blank slate. Is your approach to these kinds of jobs different?

Essentially it is the same. For example, the work I am doing in Abu Dhabi is for a maritime museum. When you approach the building from the land, then it forms a gate to the sea. When you approach it from the sea, it becomes a gate to the land. At the top is an exhibition space, and there is another underwater too. It's a museum, so it has to be conscious of local history.

Brand-new buildings can be as conscious of history as renovation projects. On the other hand, the Dogana di Mare renovation in Venice, where we are turning the old Customs House into a contemporary-art museum (to be called the Punta della Dogana), is directed ostensibly at the future — because it is a museum of contemporary art. But of course, it must be conscious of the past, too — because you're making something inside a 500-year-old structure.

In the end, all of my work starts from "zero" — it's just the position of the zero is different. With the renovation work, I consider the existing building to be part of the site, part of the environment in which I must build the new building. All the work builds on the past to convey a message directed at the future. That's what Keizo Saji saw in the Row House in Osaka. He detected hope and a dream for the future.

You just mentioned that the Japanese sensibility is appreciated overseas. What is this Japanese sensibility? I know when you received the Pritzker Prize the jury mentioned in their announcement that your work continued the already significant contribution of Japanese architects to international Modernist architecture.

I think Japan's contribution has been the idea that architecture is not a "thing" — it's not a solid object. It's like Kakuzo Okakura wrote in his "Book of Tea" in 1906: Architecture is never a shape, it is the space enclosed by the shape, by the walls and ceiling. I think he is right. This sort of thinking is not exclusive to Japan — similar things can be found in the West too, but I think with the use of lightweight walls, coming from shoji and fusuma (types of sliding screens), Japan pioneered that idea.

You are currently in charge of the Grand Plan for the Tokyo Olympic bid for 2016. Can you tell me what your actual role is?

I am the general director of all the facilities. But there is also a plan called "Tokyo 10 Years From Now," which I am working on for the Tokyo Metropolitan Government. I want to re-establish Tokyo as a garden city. A long time ago it was a city of daimyo (feudal lord) residences — and some of them have survived, such as Korakuen and Tokyo University. I want to bring the grounds of Meiji Shrine and other park areas together to make a green Tokyo. My "Umi no Mori" ("Forest in the Sea") plan is a part of that. The forest is being built on garbage — it's 100 hectares, about the same area as an 18-hole golf course — of reclaimed land in Tokyo Bay. By making the garbage mountain into a forest, I want to turn it into a symbol for global environmental awareness.

We have to make a world that doesn't produce garbage. We have to stop wasting resources. So, by making this forest in the middle of this 30-million-person metropolis, we are hoping to become a model city for the world.

While we're at it, people in Tokyo are conscious of environmental issues, so why not make the area inside the circular Yamanote Line a car-free zone? It could be a pedestrian paradise, though service vehicles and taxis would be allowed. Tokyo could be turned into one of those cities built on an ideal — based on the same principles of natural circulation as pre-modern Tokyo. And then, if we could hold the Olympics in that city, it would great.

For the Olympics, we are thinking of preserving the main buildings from the 1964 Olympics — the National Gymnasium by architect Kenzo Tange, and so on — and reinforcing them so they can be used again. You know, I'm an architect, so everyone thinks I am going to design the main stadium and all the new buildings, but no: I want all the architecture to be decided by open competitions. Renovation and reconstruction work would also be decided by competition. I want to bring expertise from around the world to Tokyo. Nowadays, in terms of the economy, Japan is too isolated. I want the Olympics bid to be more open to the outside world.

It sounds like there are some ideas in there worth exploring with or without the Olympics.

Yes, the "Tokyo 10 Years From Now" plan is, in fact, unrelated to the Olympics. We need to make it happen either way. The population in India and China is going to grow even more, and they're all going to want to drive cars. It's going to be a terrible situation for the environment. Tokyo can become a model for the carless city.

It seems your vision for the future of Tokyo is as clear now as that original vision you had for the Row House in Osaka more than 30 years ago. Are you confident it will inspire as many other people in the future?

After the war, both Tokyo and Osaka developed at an amazing pace, but mistakes were made; each should have been developed with a grand plan in mind, rather than in a piecemeal fashion.

Tokyo is big problem. You know, at the moment, Tokyo is not the focus of the world's attention. With other cities in Asia developing so rapidly, Tokyo is a forgotten city. But the problems facing us with environmental degradation offer a chance to rethink, to readdress planning issues in Tokyo. By doing so, we can make Tokyo into a model for the world. It can become a greener city, a more open city, and, if it is selected to host the 2016 Olympics, that movement will get a major boost.