Constructing buildings designed by architect, Tadao Ando, is fascinating, exhausting, challenging, demanding and very rewarding. The buildings look deceptively simple but require a tremendous amount of effort to build correctly. Ando is a minimalist architect. His work does not have baseboard, window trim, door casings, moldings or other details that can hide any imperfections in the construction. If you make a mistake with an Ando building you have two choices — either live with the mistake or tear it out and reconstruct. Ando uses "silky smooth concrete" as his signature material. The concrete is cast in place and requires perfect planning and execution. It is an unforgiving material and the "smooth as-cast" finish is the most difficult concrete finish to achieve. The finished product should be virtually free of bug holes (air bubbles trapped at the formwork surfaces), with clear pattern lines and crisp, sharp corners and edges. When I was asked in 1996 to become the Construction Manager/Owner's Representative for the Pulitzer, I was already working on Tadao Ando's first building in the USA - the Eychaner House in Chicago, a 10,500 square foot residence in the Lincoln Park neighborhood. This was a demanding building. It is concrete both inside and out — no plaster on the walls and ceilings but finished architectural concrete. Because of the constraints of the Chicago winters, insulation had to be sandwiched between the inner and outer concrete wall pours. I had learnt much from working on the fantastic Eychaner House but knew that with the Pulitzer I could improve upon what had been done. Ando's design module for the Pulitzer Foundation for The Arts and Eychaner House was based on sheets of plywood (4 x 8 foot) which make up the liners for the formwork. His design called for the wall surfaces to display the panel lines between each individual 4 x 8 foot plywood liner as well as show the individual screw heads and form ties that make up the formwork. Everything had to be perfectly aligned and the panel lines had to be exactly parallel with the one above, below and to either side. These panel lines ran completely around the exterior and continued in the interior of the structure. Window heads, sills, door heads, ceilings, floor finishes, millwork, light fixtures, security devices all aligned with the panel lines. Since the panel lines were less than a pencil line in width there was no room for error. Ando also typically detailed a 1/8^th inch margin around door frames, light fixtures, electrical outlets, smoke detectors etc. This margin had to be perfect because if it was a mere 1/16^th inch out then you have lost or gained 50% of the margin. In constructing an Ando building the concrete is the key. If the concrete were not perfect then the other elements of the building would not be accurate. When I first saw Tadao Ando's concept sketches of the Pulitzer I was impressed by the linearity of the building. It is essentially two long boxes of differing heights separated by a water court. A roof slab extends from the taller box over the lower and is supported by a single column. I loved the purity of the design but I realized from these sketches that because of the accent on length, particularly in the main gallery and water court, that all the lines in the walls, ceilings and floors have to be perfectly straight and parallel. If a line was wavy or not aligned then it would be very obvious to the eye.