Who is Tadao Ando, Japanese architect behind the floating Dubai Museum of Art?

Pritzker Prize-winning Japanese creative was originally linked to the planned Maritime Museum on Saadiyat Island

Japanese architect Tadao Ando poses in front of a public toilet designed by him used in the Wim Wenders film, Perfect Days. AFP

Japanese architect Tadao Ando has been appointed to design the newly announced Dubai Museum of Art, described by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, Vice President and Ruler of Dubai, on X as “floating above the waters of Dubai Creek”.

The commission brings one of the world’s most influential living architects to the UAE, known internationally for his serene concrete buildings that merge light, water and geometry.

Design philosophy and approach

Born in Osaka on September 13, 1941, Ando is largely self-taught. He founded Tadao Ando Architect & Associates in 1969 and built his reputation on simple geometries and the precise use of natural light.

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In a 2025 interview with Vanity Fair, he said: “One can create architecture simply by pursuing light".

While in a 2011 interview with The Talks, he explained: “I always believed that the wall is an extremely important element to expose light. On the wall, the locus of breathing light is drawn. This imbues life into architecture.”

Ando has designed the coming Dubai Museum of Art. Photo: Dubai Media Office

Speaking to The Guardian in 2014, he reflected on his approach more broadly: “I don’t want to be special. I just want to be an ordinary person.” That modest outlook underpins his belief that buildings should respond quietly to their surroundings rather than dominate them.

A long relationship with water

While Ando has never completed a structure that literally floats, water has been a recurring element throughout his career. His Church on the Water (1988) in Hokkaido faces a broad reflecting pool, while his Honpukuji Water Temple (1991) on Awaji Island places its main hall beneath a lotus pond. The Sayamaike Historical Museum (2001) in Osaka Prefecture incorporates cascading channels beside Japan’s oldest reservoir.

A green apple statue created by Japanese architect Tadao Ando on a square at the Bund Finance Centre in Shanghai. AFP

In the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth (2002) in Texas, five glass-and-concrete pavilions rest above a shallow pool, creating the illusion of a museum that hovers on water. Critics have often cited the design as a hallmark of Ando’s sensitivity to landscape and reflection. The Dubai Museum of Art, set directly above the Creek, appears to extend that idea more literally.

Recognition and major works

Ando received the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 1995, with the jury praising his “consistent and disciplined vocabulary” and his ability to engage natural elements “in a profoundly spiritual way”. He later received the AIA Gold Medal in 2002 and Japan’s Order of Culture in 2010.

Among his most recognised works are the Church of the Light in Osaka (1989), the Benesse House Museum and Chichu Art Museum on Japan’s Naoshima Island, the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth in the US and the Bourse de Commerce – Pinault Collection in Paris.

In 2023, a public toilet he designed for the Tokyo Toilet Project was one of the key filming locations of director Wim Wenders's international hit film Perfect Days.

Ando’s work in the Middle East

Ando’s regional footprint is modest but expanding. In 2023, he was announced as the architect of Il Teatro, a performing-arts centre in Sharjah’s Aljada development.

The upcoming Dubai Museum of Art has a unique floating feature. Photo: Dubai Media Office

More than a decade earlier, he was also linked to the Maritime Museum planned for Saadiyat Island in Abu Dhabi, first announced in 2007 as part of the Saadiyat Cultural District masterplan. That project, described by its developer at the time as a waterfront museum “floating upon a plane of water”, has not seen major public updates since.

His latest commission in Dubai places him among the global architects shaping the UAE’s cultural landscape, alongside Jean Nouvel, Frank Gehry and Foster + Partners. The museum on Dubai Creek continues a national strategy of pairing ambitious cultural institutions with landmark architecture.