Museum SAN, nestled in the mountains of Wonju, Gangwon Province, South Korea was designed by Japanese architect Tadao Ando in 2013. Commemorating the Museum SAN’s tenth anniversary has presented a new extension, Tadao Ando’s second and latest meditation space for the institution, the "Space of Light" which was unveiled on July 18th, and has been open to the public, on August 1st.

The "Space of Light" is the second meditation space at the museum, after the opening of the "Meditation Hall", completed in 2019. The structure is located in the sculpture garden, near the entrance of the museum.

Coinciding it was featured the exhibition  "Tadao Ando-Youth" that will extend to 29th October.
Tadao Ando designed the earlier Meditation Hall (opened in January 2019), as a dome-shaped structure embedded into the earth near the northern Stone Garden, creating a space of light that gently envelops the visitors. In contrast, the Space of Light, which sits on the southern end, offers a stoic and rigid space inspired by the platonic solids and highlights its distinct symmetry of light.

Almost like a void, a highly minimal space, the natural light that flows in resonates with its geometry opening up and generating the sensation of transcending to another sensitive level. Angular and round, still and dynamic, rigid and open – the contrasting yet complementary two spaces hope to achieve a new dynamic balance at Museum SAN.
 
"People will be able to feel that they are directly encountering nature. With Space of Light, I wanted to create a space where nature and humans become one." Unobstructed light flooding into the building is something Ando is proud of. "Light is much more beautiful without the glass,' he says. "One day, I would like to get rid of the glass in the Church of Light."
 

"The Space of Light" Museum SAN by Tadao Ando. Photography courtesy of Museum SAN.


"The Space of Light" Museum SAN by Tadao Ando. Photography courtesy of Museum SAN.


The 22,000-square-meter museum was founded by the Hansol Cultural Foundation. The museum was designed by Tadao Ando and commissioned by the late Lee In-hee, who was then an advisor to the Hansol Group.


Tadao Ando. "The Space of Light" Museum SAN by Tadao Ando. Photography courtesy of Museum SAN.
 
“I was doubtful if the space was suitable for a museum because it was situated in the middle of the mountains, quite far from the capital city Seoul. I was skeptical about Lee's request.

Lee persuaded me that if the museum is the only one of its kind, people will visit it in the end. She was right -- now the museum is visited by 200,000 people every year.”
Tadao Ando on July 15 at a lecture at Ewha Womans University.

The museum also runs a space dedicated to American artist James Turrell, known for exploring the concept of light through his works.

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Architects
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Client
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Area
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Superficie total museo.- 22.000 m².
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Museum.- 2013.
First expansion.- 2018.
Second expansion.- July 18th 2023.
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Museum SAN. 260, Oak Valley 2-gil, Jijeong-myeon, Wonju-si, Gangwon-do, Republic of Korea.
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Tadao Ando was born in Osaka, Japan, in 1941. Ando briefly worked as a professional boxer in his youth. At 17, he obtained a featherweight boxing license and participated in professional bouts in Japan. At the same time, he worked as a truck driver and carpenter, a trade in which he gained firsthand experience in constructing furniture and wooden structures.

Tadao Ando did not attend formal architecture school for economic and personal reasons. He came from a modest family in Osaka, and financial constraints prevented him from attending university. During this time, he began reading architectural books on his own, by Mies van der Rohe and other modern architects, including treatises by Le Corbusier, particularly the book Vers une architecture, which was decisive for his vocation. His alternative training consisted of reading, attending lectures, and learning from direct observation.

A self-taught architect, he spent time in Kyoto and Nara, where he studied firsthand the great monuments of traditional Japanese architecture. Between 1962 and 1969, he travelled to the United States, Europe, and Africa to learn about Western architecture, its history, and techniques. His studies of traditional and modern Japanese architecture profoundly influenced his work and resulted in a unique blend of these rich traditions.

In 1969, he founded Tadao Ando Architect and Associates in Osaka. He is an honorary member of the architecture academies in six countries; he has been a visiting professor at Yale, Columbia, and Harvard University; and in 1997, he became a professor of architecture at the University of Tokyo.

His notable works include the Water Church (1988) and the Light Church (1989) in Japan; the Naoshima Museum of Contemporary Art (1992); the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth in Texas (2002); and the UNESCO Conference Center in Paris (1995).

In 1991, he completed Rokko Housing II, the second phase of a residential complex begun in 1983 in Kobe, which was expanded in a third phase in 1998.

Ando has received numerous architectural awards, including the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 1995. Tadao Ando was appointed to the Berlin Academy of Arts in 1995. In 1995, he was made a Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French government. He was subsequently promoted to Officer in 1997 and to Commander in 2013.

In 1996, he received the Praemium Imperiale for Architecture from the Japan Art Association, and in 1997, he was awarded the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) Gold Medal, the American Institute of Architects Gold Medal in 2002, and the Kyoto Prize for his outstanding career in the arts and philosophy in 2002.

His works have been exhibited at institutions such as the Centre Pompidou in Paris, MoMA in New York, and the Venice Architecture Biennale, where he has participated in multiple editions since 1985. His buildings can be seen in Japan, Europe, the United States, and India.

In the fall of 2001, as a follow-up to the comprehensive master plan commissioned by Cooper, Robertson & Partners in the 1990s and completed in 2001, Tadao Ando was selected to develop a new architectural master plan for the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, to expand its buildings and enhance its 140-acre campus. The project included the construction of the new Stone Hill Center exhibition building (2008) and the expansion of the Clark Museum, which reopened in 2014.

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Published on: August 18, 2023
Cite:
metalocus, ANDRÉS BLANCO
"Tadao Ando expands Museum SAN with a meditation space "The Space of Light"" METALOCUS. Accessed
<https://www.metalocus.es/en/news/tadao-ando-expands-museum-san-a-meditation-space-space-light> ISSN 1139-6415
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