A Journey Through the Work of Tadao Ando – Youth Pavilion, Expo 2025

While the main Expo 2025 site was a dazzling vision of the future, one of the most unexpectedly powerful experiences during our Japan visit came at the Youth Pavilion by Tadao Ando, a side exposition honouring one of architecture's true masters.

Located in a stunning purpose-built venue that seamlessly blends into its natural surroundings, the pavilion was an intimate and deeply inspiring retrospective. From his early sketches to world-famous concrete masterpieces, the exhibition walked us through Ando's philosophy, his fearless experimentation with light and shadow, and the poetry in his simplicity.

As architectural designers based in Wanaka and Queenstown, where nature, light, and materiality dictate the rhythm of our work, walking through the Youth Pavilion was a quiet but profound validation of our own design values. It reminded us how essential it is to be bold yet respectful, timeless yet innovative.

The exhibition venue itself was a standout architectural experience – a space that embodied Ando's minimalist yet emotional language. It was also a refreshing break from the technological spectacle of the main Expo, grounding us in the timelessness of pure form, context, and spatial atmosphere.

Seeing the legacy of Tadao Ando up close was more than a museum visit – it was a reminder of why we do what we do. And it reaffirmed our mission at Minimal Design: to create architecture that not only serves but moves.

We left Japan not just with new tools and ideas for presentation and design but with renewed creative energy, ready to continue helping developers in Central Otago bring their visions to life with clarity, innovation, and soul.