Majicman Notes

Tadao Ando on the inspiration for his remaking of the Bourse de Commerce:

“Fifty years ago, I visited the Pantheon in Rome. No one else was there. As I stood, looking up, I came to the realisation that this building was a symbol of the nothingness of forever.”

“An eight-meter wide oculus, tracking the movement of the sun, expressed the ultimate dichotomy of light and dark. The sun moving around the Earth produced our reality, long before the beginning of life on Earth.”

“Throughout my career I have held the belief that the best architecture is not revealed on its exterior. It is ideal for the building form to vanish, leaving behind only the interior spaces.”

“You can find the exploration of this idea in the Chichu Museum on Naoshima, where the building is embedded in a mountain, so that only a series of connected geometric voids remain.”

“I used a similar concept in the case of the Bourse de Commerce. I felt no need to intervene in the façade because my interests related more to the procession of space.”

“The circle is infinite. For millennia, humans have studied its shape, admiring its simplicity, all the while failing to replicate its perfection.

In the contemporary age, geometry is used by humanity to connect to the ethereal. I have often used the square, the circle and the triangle within the buildings that I design. When these Euclidean geometries are expressed in space, they provoke symbolic and somatic experiences.”

“In Japan there is a word, okuyukashii, which translates roughly as “modest and elegant beauty”. “Independently, the term okuyuki describes depth in art, space and information. This root word implies that the layering and concealing of elements can amplify the experiential aspect of beauty.”

“It is an innately Japanese way of thinking and was often utilised to create dimensional theatricality in the Buddhist temples of Kyoto and Nara.”

“It is my hope that our renovation of the Bourse de Commerce will extend the lifespan of the building for centuries, so that future generations can enjoy it.”