"Tadao Ando Exhibition 2009: The City of Water/Osaka vs. Venice" seems like a fixed fight. Many would even balk at the idea of the match-up.
Venice is one of the world's most beautiful cities, while Osaka, not spared U.S. bombing raids in World War II as Kyoto was, became divided by expressways and ramshackle urban development as the city spurred Japan's rapid postwar economic development. And yet, architect Tadao Ando (b. 1941) is fiercely proud of his native Osaka.
But Osaka vs. Venice is not really a challenge posed in the present. It is more about how Ando is proposing a new face for Osaka in 10 years, such that it could size up favorably to the Italian city. It is also about Ando's renovation of a 17th-century Venetian customs house, the Punta della Dogana, that houses the contemporary art collection of French billionaire Francois Pinault, and opened to the public on June 6 this year during the first week of the Venice Biennale.