Armando was born Herman Dirk van Dodeweerd in Amsterdam in 1929. From 1949 to 1954 he studied art history and philosophy at the University of Amsterdam. In 1979 he came to West Berlin on a DAAD scholarship. In 1982 he participated in documenta 7 and represented the Netherlands at the Venice Biennale in 1984. From 1996 he was a member of the Academy of Arts, Berlin. Queen Beatrix awarded him the Medal of Honour for Art and Science in 2009. In 2013 the Armando Foundation was established in the Netherlands. Armando passed away in Potsdam (Brandenburg) in 2018.