Kazuyo Sejima + Ryue Nishizawa / SANAA
EAST GALLERY
November 30, 2007 – March 2, 2008


AUDIO: Designing the Museum (31.4 MB)
Featuring excerpts from a discussion between Sam Chermayeff and Lucy Styles of SANAA Studio and Ken Tadashi Oshima, Guest Curator of the SANAA exhibition and Assistant Professor in the Department of Architecture at the University of Washington; also includes a conversation with Henry Art Gallery graphic designers Lynn Fleming and Kristin Waldon.




Essen Design School. Courtesy of SANAA.

Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa have been working collaboratively under the name SANAA (Sejima And Nishizawa And Associates) since 1995 but their work has only recently received significant recognition in the West. Among the prizes awarded SANAA are the Golden Lion at the Venice Architecture Biennale (2004) and the Arnold Brunner Memorial medal of the American Academy of Arts and Letters (2002).

An array of the studio’s signature projects will be represented in this first exhibition of SANAA’s work in the U.S.; projects include the new New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York, the Glass Pavilion at the Toledo Museum of Art (Ohio), and the Museum of the 21st Century in Kanazawa, Japan. Also featured will be several design objects and furniture pieces, such as the Rabbit chair for nextmaruni and their Alessi Tea and Coffee Tower. The inclusion of models, building plans, photographs, and other objects provide an intimate understanding of the dynamic relationships at play in the artists’ works. Video documentation of recent and current projects will further convey the idea of “atmosphere,” the sense of simplicity and transparency that has become the signature of this remarkable firm.



Drop Chairs. Courtesy of SANAA.