Tadao Ando: Spontaneous Sketches

On its fifth anniversary, Wrightwood 659 presents an intimate exhibition of drawings by the Pritzker Prize-winning architect of Wrightwood 659, Tadao Ando. Ando quickly sketched directly on the walls during the inaugural exhibition at Wrightwood 659, Ando and Le Corbusier: Masters of Architecture (October 12–December 15, 2018), and the drawings have been carefully preserved and framed. These hand-drawn sketches—all done in blue marker on painted sheetrock—have a spontaneous quality denoting an ephemerality, while their vibrancy expresses Ando’s creative generative process. The drawings represent some of Ando’s most important commissions, including his work on the island of Naoshima; the Pulitzer Arts Foundation in St. Louis, Missouri; the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth; the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Massachusetts; and his iconic Church of the Light in Ibaraki, Osaka, Japan.

Tadao Ando: Spontaneous Sketches will open in conjunction with Difference Machines on October 13, 2023.

Photo of Tadao Ando by Mitch Canoff, 2018.