Over the course of his nearly 50-year career, Ando has helped transform the gritty, gray material often associated with driveways and median strips into an artistic medium. “Every architect I know who wants to do something in concrete always refers to him as the ideal in concrete design,” says Reg Hough, a concrete consultant who has for decades worked closely with top architects, including Ando, I. M. Pei, and Richard Meier. Having left his mark on cities from Tokyo to Fort Worth to Milan, Ando is now overseeing construction of a seven-unit, concrete-and-glass condominium building, 152 Elizabeth, his first stand-alone structure in New York City.
