Kazuyo Sejima
Architect and Founder
SANAA

Kazuyo Sejima is an architect who, with Ryue Nishizawa, founded the Tokyo based architectural firm SANAA.

In 1987 Sejima founded Kazuyo Sejima & Associates, and after training at Tokyo University she began working in the office of the legendary Toyo Ito. She was eventually named Young Architect of the Year, by the Japan Institute of Architects for her work Saishunkan Seiyaku (Womens Dormitory), in 1992. Success followed success and in 1995 along with Ryue Nishizawa she founded SANAA.

The firm has been on a fast growth curve and is responsible for numerous projects both big and small: most recently the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York, USA; the Zollverein school in Essen, Germany; the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art in Kanazawa, Japan; the Christian Dior building in Tokyo, Japan; Prada Beauty in Hong Kong, China; an extension of the Institut Valencia dArt Modern, Valencia, Spain; the Louvre Lens, Paris, France; the Hitachi Station, Ibaraki, Japan; the Rolex Learning Centre (Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne), Lausanne, Switzerland; and a day care centre in Kanagawa, Japan.

Sejima has taught as a visiting professor and lecturer at a number of prestigious educational bodies including, Harvard, ETH in Zurich, Kyoto University, Tokyo University, Keio University, Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, and holds the Jean Labatut Professorship at the School of Architecture at Princeton University, USA, where she has served on the advisory council for several years.

Sejima has recently won the International Fellowship of the Royal Institute of British Architecture and with Nishizawa won the Mario Pani Award, Mexico City, Mexico; and the Kunstpreis Berlin (Berlin Art Prize), Berlin, Germany; and for their work the firm was awarded the Gold Lion at the Venice biennale in 2004 and the Arnold Brunner memorial medal of the American academy of arts and letters in 2002.