Kazuyo Sejima

Prize winner

Kazuyo Sejima already came to notice with her early buildings, which not only demonstrate an elegant formal composition and material assembly but also a thorough independent design approach. The Japanese architect starts from an abstract description of functional relationships, for which the respective building is intended, transposes this into a spatial diagram and transforms this diagram into architecture. The resulting buildings are as unusual as they are memorable, seemingly transcending any traditional typology, however, remaining closely related to their function.
In this manner, Sejima picks up the modernist thread, whose premises and ambitions she nevertheless interprets in an unorthodox and contemporary way. Distinct from her teacher Toyo Ito and most of his generation, she is not concerned with the exaggerated representation of the fleeting character of our times, but, on the contrary, with a contemplative deceleration – devoid of any nostalgia.

Kazuyo Sejima is awarded the Schelling Architecture Prize 2000.

• Laudation Vittorio Magnano Lampugnani ~56 KB | pdf