Tadao Ando, the world-renowned self-taught architect, winner in 1995 of the Pritzker Prize, considered the Nobel Prize of architecture, received an honorary degree from the Faculty of Architecture of “La Sapienza” University of Rome on 22 April 2002. Tadao Ando attributes his learning to intense reading and a large number of trips to Europe and the United States, undertaken to study contemporary and historical architecture.

Born in Osaka in 1941, Tadao Ando realized his first project for family homes in 1972, appearing on the national scene in 1976 with the Azuma home projects in Osaka, winning the annual award assigned by the Architectural Institute of Japan.

Among his most important works are the Children’s Museum, the Naoshima Contemporary Art Museum, the Suntory Museum, the Museum of Literature and the Forest of Tombs Museum in Kumamoto, the Church of the Light in Osaka, the Tomamu Water Chapel, the Temple on water in the Awajishima Islands, Japan, the Pulitzer Foundation, 2001, in the USA, the Japan Pavilion at Expo ‘92 in Seville. In Italy, he designed the Fabrica building for Benetton in Treviso, the Giorgio Armani theatre in Milan, while in Venice he was responsible for the new layout and maintenance of Palazzo Grassi, the restoration project of the Punta della Dogana and of the little theatre in Palazzo Grassi.