SANAA's kazuyo sejima and ryue nishizawa win 2010 pritzker prize

japanese architects kazuyo sejima and ryue nishizawa of SANAA have won the 2010 pritzker prize, joining the likes of frank gehry, rem koolhaas, and renzo piano in receiving the the profession’s highest honor. the jury, stated: ‘they explore like few others the phenomenal properties of continuous space, lightness, transparency and materiality.’

kazuyo sejima and ryue nishizawa

among the works credited by the jury included their christian dior building located in the omotesando shopping district in tokyo, ‘o’ museum in nagano, the new museum of contemporary art, new york city and the recent rolex learning center in lausanne. ‘they seek the essential qualities of architecture that result in a much-appreciated straight forwardness, economy of means and restraint, ‘ quoted one of the jurors.

serpentine gallery pavilion 2009 | image © SANAA, photograph © james newton/VIEW
main image: image © edmund sumner/VIEW

sejima, who had previously worked in the offices of acclaimed japanese architect toyo ito, and nishizawa formed their tokyo-based design firm SANAA in 1995. the duo were awarded the 2005 rolf schock visual arts prize by sweden’s royal academies in 2005. the formal prtizker ceremony will be held in may on ellis island, where the duo will also receive a $100,000 USD grant and bronze medallions.

EPFL learning centre | image by mikado1201, CC BY-SA 3.0

sejima is currently serving as the director of this year’s venice architecture biennale, the first woman to do so. ‘we’re always thinking, ‘how we can open up the architecture to the people or to the surroundings that each project has?’ this is one of the reasons why our architecture becomes open and transparent and light,’ nishizawa said.

zollverein school of management and design, essen, germany
image by nomo /michael hoefner, CC BY-SA 2.5

christian dior building, omotesandō, tokyo
image by kakidai, CC BY-SA 3.0

kitagata housing project, japan
image by raphael azevedo franca, public domain