Japanese architect spends 20 years building ramshackle tower by hand Passers-by stop and stare at a hand-built concrete tower that looks like it has been lifted right out of a Japanese animation and dropped onto a real-life Tokyo street. Its creator, Keisuke Oka, spent almost 20 years making the distinctive four-storey Arimaston Building. | AFP News Agency

The architect who mastered Japanese Brutalism – Tadao Ando. From the Church of the Light to the Naoshima Contemporary Art Museum, Ando shaped a language of smooth concrete, pure geometry, and poetic light. Self-taught, he traveled the world sketching lessons from masters before founding his Osaka studio at just 28. In 1995, he became the first Japanese architect to win the Pritzker Prize, recognized for merging modernism with traditional Japanese sensibilities. For Ando, silence, nature, and lig