This insightful journey through the thoughts and memories of one of the great poets of architecture is personally narrated by Tadao Ando. Over 750 sketches, models, and technical drawings, along with an appendix listing all his realized and unrealized projects, document five decades of fruitful creativity and reveal the essence of Ando's work. Follow the development of many of his most famous buildings – including Row House in Sumiyoshi, Rokko Housing, Chichu Art Museum, and Bourse de Commerce – from the first rough pencil sketches to precise technical drawings, showing that his works are not spontaneous flashes of inspiration but living architectural projects shaped by time, his travels, and reflection.

This book is not only a monograph of his buildings but a map of Ando's inner landscape. The light of a stone monk monastery in southern France, the deep spatial resonance of a stepped well in Ahmedabad, the labyrinthine mystery of the cave dwellings in Cappadocia – all these physical and emotional memories and experiences he gathered on early journeys reappear in his work as impressive spatial stagings, realized in concrete, glass, and light.

Ando has remained faithful to the hand-drawn line. For him, it is not the smooth perfection of digital models but the laborious yet spontaneous sketching that captures the true heartbeat of architecture. This book is both a documentation of his drawings and a meditation on how buildings come into being and become part of history, memory, and the constant pursuit of beauty. In Ando's own words: “Our imagination can expand endlessly and shape the invisible spaces in our minds – that is the infinite story of architecture.”