Tadao Ando and Elyn Zimmerman win 2016 Isamu Noguchi Award

The Noguchi Museum announced today that the one and only Tadao Ando and artist Elyn Zimmerman will receive the 2016 Isamu Noguchi Award. Established in 2014, the Isamu Noguchi Award recognizes individuals whose work embodies the collaborative, multi-disciplinary, and innovative qualities of influential landscape architect and artist Isamu Noguchi.

During the museum's annual Spring Benefit on May 10, 2016, Ando and Zimmerman will each be presented with the award, which resembles Noguchi's iconic "Red Cube". In the last two editions, Norman Foster and artist Hiroshi Sugimoto won the inaugural award, while architect Yoshio Taniguchi and industrial designer Jasper Morrison received the 2015 award earlier this year.

Scroll down for more about the 2016 winners.

Tadao Ando: "Tadao Ando’s minimalist approach, sensitivity to light, and incorporation of natural elements into his projects, in addition to his fusion of Eastern and Western architecture, are all principles that Noguchi embraced throughout his career. Highly regarded for his unparalleled work with concrete and his creative use of natural light, Ando is known for structures that follow natural forms of the landscape. Like Noguchi’s sculpture, which gave equal importance to the object and the space it inhabited, Ando’s work harmoniously integrates edifice and environment, while interior and exterior are intimately connected through his incorporation of water, light, wind, sky, and landscape into his building designs. Ando learned his first lessons by studying traditional Japanese architecture before learning about modern Western architecture, including the buildings of Le Corbusier, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Louis Kahn. The inspiration he drew from these experiences is evident throughout his work which, much like the museum that Noguchi designed, often provide sanctuary from the clamor of daily life."

Elyn Zimmerman: "Elyn Zimmerman also shares with Noguchi a sensitivity to atmosphere and the incorporation of natural elements in to the design of her projects — from public plazas to sculpture gardens on a grand scale. Zimmerman started her career as a painter and photographer, captivated by the ephemeral notion of light and space.  A trip to India inspired her to create outdoor works, and her first significant public installation was for the National Geographic Society in 1980. Like Noguchi, Zimmerman is best known for her use of stone, often in association with water and landscape elements. Her deep appreciation for the emotional resonance of stone and the ways it interacts with the environment has translated into her public and private commissions, which often feature monoliths or channels of rough and polished stone. Like Noguchi , she is a global citizen, and undertakes collaborations around the world."