"A commercial complex in Naha, Okinawa Prefecture, Festival is true to Ando's adherence to geometrical clarity in its 36 meter cubical form. An eight-story reinforced concrete frame is infilled with a concrete block bearing wall modulated to respond to the near tropical climate of the area. Slightly perforated, the blocks enclosing the atrium serve as a screen of both light and air, expressing a relationship between solid and void. A 'three-dimensional street' serves as a unifier to the interior levels while responding to the climate."

— Darlene Levy. drawn from Kenneth Frampton, Ed. Tadao Ando: Buildings Projects Writings. p122.

The Creator's Words

"Nature will manifest itself in a variety of ways in the interiorized outdoor spaces such as the atrium, the street, and the plaza, and will offer to visitors a continuously changing spectacle."

— Tadao Ando. Tadao Ando, Buildings Projects Writings. New York: Rizzoli, 1984. p123.

"I am interested in discovering what new life patterns can be extracted and developed from living under severe conditions. Furthermore I feel that order is necessary to give life dignity. Establishing order imposes restrictions, but I believe it cultivates extraordinary things in people. I believe in removing architecture from function after ensuring the observation of functional basics. In other words, I like to see how far architecture can pursue function and then, after the pursuit has been made, to see how far architecture can be removed from function. The significance of architecture is found in the distance between it and function."

— Tadao Ando. from Kenneth Frampton, Ed. Tadao Ando: Buildings Projects Writings. p8.

Details

term of planning: 1/1980-2/1983
term of construction: 3/1983-9/1984

site area: 1658.12 sq. meters
total floor area: 7936.39 sq. meters