Architecure of Tadao Ando
Omotesando Hills built with shoppers in mind
Tadao Ando is a well-known Japanese architect. He has his own architectural theory, not being confined by traditional ideas about construction. He is a genius who develops architecture not only focused on appearance, but also with consideration of who is going to use the building.
One of his works is Omotesando Hills. It features a very long rectangular shape with an atrium inside. This fashion mall is not devised for finding specific stores easily. Normally, malls are designed with high visibility for the brand identity of each shop so that a particular store is easy to find at first glance. However, Omotesando Hills does not match to this standard. It seems that the layout encourages customers to discover new things while looking for the brand shop they want to visit, even though they may find this a little troublesome.
I felt his aesthetic sense in Omotesando Hills. Because the stairs and escalators have gentle slopes, the movement of the customers looks like running water. Ando also paid particular attention to the materials used for the slopes to create the feeling of a nature trail.
Although there is not much flashy or overt glamorousness, it is impressive that Ando Tadao created this building with the experience of its customers in mind, rather than only focusing on the visual impact of the architecture.
