SANAA. Casas

CASAS Kazuyo Sejima + Ryue Nishizawa SANAA

MUSAC SANAA ACTAR

CASAS

Kazuyo Sejima + Ryue Nishizawa / SANAA

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Uno más en casa de los SANAA.

Una conversación de Agustín Pérez Rubio con Kazuyo Sejima y Ryue Nishizawa

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Casas en proceso Casa Flor Jardín y Casa Apartamentos Seijo Apartamentos Okurayama Apartamentos Ichikawa Casa en China Apartamentos Eda

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Casas construidas Casa A Casa S Casa en un Huerto de Ciruelos Casa Pequeña Casa Moriyama

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Reinterpretando valores estéticos tradicionales

Kristine Guzmán 175

SANAA en sueños

Luis Fernández-Galiano 181

Prácticas radicales en la “construcción de relaciones”

Yuko Hasegawa 190

Biografías

Con el objetivo de facilitar nuestro acercamiento a la creación artística más actual, la Junta de Castilla y León ofrece, a través de la programación del MUSAC, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León, una línea expositiva internacional que está convirtiendo a este centro en un referente dentro del panoráma artistico contemporáneo. Kazuyo Sejima+Ryue Nishizawa / SANAA es la prímera muestra retrospectiva en nuestro país de este estudio de arquitectos japoneses. A partir de esta exposición adquiere coherencia la publicación de este libro que repasa gran parte de la trayectoria de esta singular pareja en el actual panorama de la arquitectura. A través de la documentación gráfica y de los textos que incorpora, este libro nos permite conocer el trabajo que han desarrollado estos arquitectos en la investigación sobre formas, estructuras y el importante papel que juega la arquitectura en la sociedad. Con estas premisas, el libro Casas SANAA que ahora presentamos recoge una amplia selección de los proyectos de viviendas más importantes que Kazuyo Sejima y Ryue Nishizawa han desarrollado independiente o conjuntamente a lo largo de sus carreras, muchas de las mismas presentes en la gran muestra que el MUSAC ha presentado.

Silvia Clemente Municio Consejería de Cultura y Turismo

Este libro supone la aportación final al proyecto expositivo que el MUSAC ha desarrollado con el equipo de arquitectos SANAA. Se trata de un acercamiento a la tan particular aportación que ellos hacen al mundo de la arquitectura doméstica. La casa en cada uno de sus proyectos adquiere elementos nuevos que logran enriquecer el concepto básico del origen de la arquitectura, la ciencia que nació el día que alguno de nuestros ancestros decidió poner sobre dos palos verticales un tercero horizontal capaz de crear un nuevo espacio donde poder resguardarse.

En los albores del siglo XXI las propuestas conceptuales de SANAA vienen a revitalizar esa idea original y a proponer nuevas vías a pesar de tanta historia y tantos miles de millones de estancias ya creadas a lo largo del tiempo por el ser humano.

La casa, como metáfora de vida y de felicidad, en estos proyectos recobra a través de la luz y la fascinación por la transparencia y lo diáfano, un componente de acercamiento a lo natural en cierta parte olvidado por la tradición contemporánea de acumulación y rapidez. En este sentido esta arquitectura es exponente de un cierto nuevo humanismo presente en las manifestaciones artísticas más arriesgadas de la creación contemporánea, mediante el cual al ser humano se le ofrecen nuevos cauces cargados de un gran optimismo que camina al lado de las nuevas tecnologías. En la magnífica exposición realizada en el MUSAC a partir de los planos, proyectos, maquetas y objetos de diseño, sobresale la maqueta a escala 1:2 del proyecto Flower House donde la mayor parte de los componentes de su propuesta arquitectónica se encuentran presentes. La arquitectura se desprende del muro convencional y atrapa elementos biológicos e incluso irracionales al mismo tiempo. Lugares para ser habitados, pero lugares también para poder vincularse con una humanidad capaz de sacar nuevas aristas a la luz y a la sombra, a la geometría y a la biología, a lo racional y a lo onírico. Con esta publicación desde el MUSAC culminamos el proyecto iniciado con la exposición y con el que hemos pretendido poner de manifiesto tanto las aportaciones de SANAA a la arquitectura contemporánea como llamar la atención sobre una manera amplia y global de entender la creación; en SANAA observamos un gran arco creativo que abarca desde el más simple de los elementos decorativos hasta el urbanismo de toda una gran ciudad dentro de un mismo concepto de entender el espacio y su uso. El trabajo de Kazuyo Sejima y Ryue Nishizawa, su estudio, en especial Sam Chermayeff, y el mimo que Agustín Pérez Rubio y Kristine Guzmán han puesto tanto en la exposición como en esta publicación, han hecho posible vincular las artes plásticas y la arquitectura contemporánea de una forma natural y evidente.

Rafael Doctor Roncero Director del MUSAC

Uno más en casa de los SANAA.

Una conversación de Agustín Pérez Rubio con Kazuyo Sejima y Ryue Nishizawa Tokio es una buena ciudad para entender que también se puede vivir en el futuro.

No en vano, el cineasta Andrei Tarkovski filmó sus carreteras y autopistas en Solaris , como una idea de viaje a “otro” mundo. Siempre que visito de nuevo esta ciudad tengo la confortable sensación de sentirme realmente en otro planeta, conocido, pero donde el esfuerzo para hacerte entender se contrarresta con una especie de sutil satisfacción por la comodidad, confort y seguridad que ofrece este país a sus visitantes.

Recuerdo aún el primer día que llegué a Tokio hace más de diez años. Era un día de abril a la puesta de sol. Desde Narita Airport iba penetrando poco a poco en la ciudad hasta la llegada a Ginza. Durante el trayecto se hizo de noche y quedé fascinado por todas sus luces parpadeando bajo la pesada lluvia que iba cayendo. Mi visión al entrar en la gran avenida era cenital, pues la autovía rodeaba unas moles de edificios, y el camino iba en descenso, quedando frente a mí toda la avenida a la altura de la vista, encendida, húmeda y hablando un lenguaje diferente. Tuve la misma sensación que años antes, cuando vi Blade Runner, donde en grandes pantallas de publicidad aparecían iconos de la tradición japonesa anunciando Coca-Cola. Nunca se me olvidará esta sensación entre el miedo, la fascinación y la pérdida.

Hoy también es un día lluvioso como aquella vez. Por la mañana he visitado de nuevo lugares cargados de recuerdos, y a su vez he aprovechado para acercarme a edificios importantes que Sejima y Nishizawa han venido realizando en los últimos tiempos en Tokio. Hh Style Store y Dior Shop en Omotesando, pero más tarde lo que más me interesaba era acercarme a algunas casas como House in a Plum Grove o Moriyama House donde nunca había estado antes, ya que en el encuentro de ayer con ellos, que duró más de dos horas, al final decidimos que el libro iba a tratar sobre su idea de proceso arquitectónico en el ámbito de lo doméstico, además de por la gran maqueta a escala que estamos preparando de su nuevo proyecto, Flower House, que se presentará por primera vez internacionalmente en la exposición en el MUSAC. Una de las cosas que más me sorprendió de la visita a estas casas es que sus dueños, los clientes de estos proyectos, además de ser muy amables son una gente muy especial. Gente que realmente está ya viviendo en el futuro con una idea total del presente, con una riqueza musical y estética, crítica y solidaria, donde su vida diaria y su habitar forma parte ya de esta actitud vital. Una nueva lección humana además de estética que me ha vuelto a dar esta pareja de arquitectos y esta sorprendente ciudad.

Esta tarde, antes del encuentro con Sejima y Nishizawa, he quedado bajo la lluvia y el viento con Sam Chermayeff, en un área de Shinagawa cerca del estudio. El joven arquitecto neoyorkino que trabaja con SANAA en proyectos, y con el cual estamos Kristine Guzmán y yo trabajando más de cerca para la exposición en el museo, me trae más información necesaria sobre la exposición y detalles para ir ultimando el proyecto. Más tarde nos acercamos al estudio, un edificio que pasa desapercibido y que parece que vaya a albergar algunos almacenes o empresas de otro tipo. En la

primera planta, al subir la escalera, el estudio se divide en dos espacios, uno para oficinas y trabajo, y el otro para proyectos y maquetas, aunque en un altillo se encuentra la Ryue Nishizawa Office. Lo que más sorprende es el caos blanco que impera debido a la multitud de maquetas y modelos que hay por todas partes.

Al entrar veo que Sejima y Nishizawa están reunidos con siete personas de su estudio alrededor de la mesa donde luego tendremos la entrevista, y sobre ella tienen la maqueta del proyecto Louvre Lens, en el que se encuentran trabajando de lleno en este momento. Entiendo que están ocupados y Sam, muy amablemente, me busca un sitio en la oficina. Así, como si fuera uno más, sigo trabajando en la mesa de alguien con mi iBook.

Tras más de hora y media de discusiones y de estudiar el proyecto entre todo el grupo, deciden terminar la reunión, no sin antes pedir unas pizzas que, al llegar, son depositadas sobre la misma mesa abierta, ya sin la maqueta de Louvre Lens. Sejima, muy amablemente, me ofrece sentarme, y junto a alguien más del equipo comenzamos a coger fuerzas para la entrevista.

Nishizawa llega también después de la gran dispersión que hubo sólo un minuto antes al finalizar la anterior reunión, toma algo de pizza y ambos se disculpan por el retraso; pero eso a mí no me molesta puesto que este equipo trabaja hasta las dos y tres de la madrugada. Doy fe de ello… Tras los últimos bocados, bebida, servilletas y los pertinentes cigarros de Sejima, les pregunto si están preparados. Miran a Sam y asienten con sus ojos y cabezas. Todo perfecto. ● Rec

Agustín Pérez Rubio (APR): Es muy interesante ver cómo trabajan en su oficina, no sólo por el proceso arquitectónico sino también porque dan diferentes usos al estudio, que es un espacio común donde tienen lugar acciones diferentes al mismo tiempo.

Ryue Nishizawa (RN): Ambos pensamos que es muy importante tener tres oficinas cercanas entre sí, de esta forma la gente puede moverse de aquí a allí en cinco segundos más o menos. Aquí tenemos la oficina de Sejima, parte de la oficina de SANAA ahí, la oficina de Nishizawa allí y otra zona de la oficina de SANAA por allí. Tenemos el estudio en un solo edificio y pensamos que es muy importante. Otra de las ideas para nuestro estudio es tener una sala que permita que la gente esté junta, aunque acústicamente no resulte siempre ideal, a veces escuchas a alguien hablando muy alto o conversando. Sin embargo, entendemos que es importante para la gente que trabaja aquí que estén conectados con otros proyectos en los que no están implicados directamente. Ésa es una de las ideas para nuestro estudio.

APR: Entonces para ustedes el contacto entre las personas es una especie de proceso de trabajo. Esto no es muy común, ¿son conscientes de ello? Algunas personas podrían considerar que compartir el mismo espacio, tener tres oficinas en una, es una idea utópica. Es más que una relación familiar.

RN: Tenemos desde luego algunos espacios privados para maquetas, mesas… éstos

no están conectados. Queremos sentir las maquetas, queremos sentir a la gente cuando habla, eso es muy importante. Desde el punto de vista de la arquitectura y el diseño, la gente divide mucho el espacio dependiendo de la función: la cocina tiene que estar separada, el dormitorio tiene que estar separado, y así… pero a veces esto produce demasiada división, demasiada organización, demasiada definición. Nos gusta la sensación de mezcla, la sensación de no saber lo que está pasando. Otra consideración es que la sensación que producen los techos altos es muy importante.

APR: Un aspecto importante de su arquitectura es la relación, se trata de una arquitectura de relación; la utilización del edificio y la utilización del espacio no están relacionadas con la forma, lo importante es el uso que la gente hace del espacio.

Podría utilizar esta mesa para trabajar o para cenar, ésta es una idea muy simple que su arquitectura ofrece, pero creo que otros arquitectos desean hacer una taxonomía, quieren que conozcamos la función de las formas o de los objetos, nada que ver con su idea de espacio multifuncional.

Kazuyo Sejima (KS): A menudo utilizamos una misma mesa para diferentes actividades, la utilizamos para montar maquetas, para celebrar reuniones, etc. Si la dividimos, podemos utilizarla para una sola función o para varias funciones al mismo tiempo.

APR: Me parece muy interesante que una cosa así ocurra en el estudio, porque refleja su idea sobre cómo distribuir u organizar el espacio en sus proyectos arquitectónicos. Me gustaría conocer su opinión acerca de los espacios domésticos, porque no sé cuál es su idea de familia, si tiene que haber un padre y una madre o si puede ser uno mismo y un amigo, o uno y sus dos gatos, ese tipo de relación nuclear, la relación más cercana que se establece. ¿Creen que los espacios en los que vivían durante su infancia tuvieron después una influencia en sus ideas sobre la vivienda? O al contrario: ¿no les gustaban los espacios en los que vivían y soñaban con otros diferentes? ¿Cuál es su idea del espacio doméstico? ¿Se trata más bien de un espacio privado?

KS: En realidad nunca he pensado sobre ello, pero en un par de ocasiones gente que me conoce me ha dicho que la casa en la que me crié influyó en mi diseño. Me crié en una casa de empresa. Nací en Hitachi, donde hay una gran empresa llamada Hitachi Electrics. La empresa construyó cinco tipos de vivienda. Eran casas modernas e independientes, muy diferentes de la casa japonesa tradicional. Las casas de empresa estaban basadas en la repetición, con un hospital, un supermercado, una oficina de correos, zona de juegos y todas las instalaciones en la misma zona. Era muy práctico, pero no había naturaleza o casas de madera en los alrededores. Recuerdo una casa de madera fuera del perímetro de la empresa. Aquella casa no tenía ventanas de cristal, sólo madera y paneles de papel que cerraban por la noche. Me preguntaba si no pasarían frío en aquella casa. Sin embargo, cuando era pequeña, todavía mucha gente vivía de esa manera.

APR: Entonces, ¿cree que ese tipo de cosas le influenciaron?

KS: Sí, es posible… Por ejemplo, en Japón tenemos mesas bajas, pero cuando era niña nunca utilicé una porque vivía en una casa de empresa. Pero esa mesa tradicional tiene muchos usos: en ella comemos, estudiamos y hacemos los deberes, etc.

Puede que esa atmósfera haya influido en mi diseño.

APR: ¿Y usted, señor Nishizawa? ¿Influyó en usted el lugar en el que se crió?

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RN: Sí, la atmósfera debió de influirme. La gente se cría de diferentes formas en diferentes atmósferas. Creo que alguna gran influencia debe de haber. Él es muy alto porque es de Manhattan [Sam Chermayeff estaba presente durante la entrevista].

Yo soy muy japonés porque me crié en la sociedad japonesa. Me crié en una vivienda pública, no en una casa de empresa. Durante los años 50 y 60, el gobierno japonés creó millones de unidades para introducir el nuevo estilo de vida y casi toda la gente que vivía en las cercanías de Tokio lo hacía en este tipo de vivienda. Cuando tenía 10 u 11 años me trasladé a uno de estos suburbios, a una casa independiente.

Era una locura, cientos de casas independientes alineadas formando una cuadrícula.

No podía saber cuál era la mía, todas eran iguales. Construyeron una gran cantidad, todas nuevas, sin historia. Viví allí durante bastante tiempo.

APR: Cuando eran niños o adolescentes, ¿sintieron el impulso de crear espacios?

No de convertirse en arquitectos, sino ese sentimiento que tienen los niños de crear mundos diferentes, ¿lo experimentaron?

RN: Yo dibujé mucho, sólo hice dibujos.

KS: Estuve muy interesada en hacer planos durante algunas temporadas porque mis padres decidieron hacer su propia casa. De repente me encontré haciendo planos para proponerles cosas. También, cuando tenía unos 10 años, solía jugar con mis amigos en los solares que había cerca de mi casa. Utilizábamos embalajes para hacer casas. En aquella época todas las familias se estaban comprando el televisor en blanco y negro o en color o la lavadora porque la economía japonesa estaba creciendo. Utilizábamos los bastidores de madera de los embalajes de todos esos nuevos electrodomésticos para hacer casas en el parque. También hice casas para muñecas.

Me crié en ese entorno. A veces también hice mesas para las muñecas con libros, cosas para la casa, no sólo la casa. Al hacerme mayor lo tiré todo, pero me quedé con las muñecas, son muy importantes para mí (se ríe).

APR: Cuando se hicieron arquitectos, ambos trabajaron durante un tiempo con Toyo Ito. ¿Qué creen que comparten de su idea de vivienda? ¿Cuáles son las diferencias?

Leí en una entrevista anterior que usted, señora Sejima, puso en duda Pao II, que no entendió por qué hizo esto en aquel momento en particular.

RN: Nunca trabajé para su estudio. Recuerdo que estuve ayudando allí durante un año y medio, como estudiante.

KS: El trabajo de Ito ha cambiado. Ahora es muy diferente de cuando yo trabajaba allí. Trabajé con él en la época en la que construyó Pao II. Yo participé en el proceso de ideación del proyecto. Estaba bien, pero yo no estaba de acuerdo con la forma.

La forma de iglú que crea era un poco demasiado para mí.

APR: A veces afirman que su arquitectura no está relacionada con la arquitectura japonesa tradicional. ¿No creen (ahora no, puesto que son más internacionales y tienen muchos proyectos fuera) que quizá la razón por la que los países occidentales perciben su arquitectura como muy japonesa es porque los proyectos fueron realizados en Japón, para clientes japoneses y en un entorno japonés? Muchos críticos de arquitectura extranjeros han escrito que SANAA representa la tradición en la arquitectura asiática o japonesa mientras que, por el contrario, ustedes afirman que su arquitectura no guarda relación con eso.

RN: Estamos muy influidos por la arquitectura japonesa, sólo que nunca hemos intentado citar directamente el pasado japonés.

KS: No podemos evitar extraer algunas influencias de la tradición japonesa.

RN: No tenemos elección.

APR: Y hablando en particular de casas, hábitats, etc. ¿qué tipos de elementos procedentes de la arquitectura japonesa tradicional pueden identificar en su arquitectura?

KS: El grosor de las paredes es muy diferente. En algunos países, por ejemplo en Holanda, me sorprendió el grosor de las paredes y los aislamientos. Y el peso de las puertas. A veces las puertas, no sólo en las casas sino también en los edificios públicos de Europa, son muy difíciles de abrir. Eso no se permitiría en Japón.

RN: Nuestro sentido de la dimensión es también diferente. Utilizamos paneles de 1,8 por 0,9 metros como módulo estándar tradicional. Las casas están pensadas en función de esta medida, que es algo menor que 2 metros por 1. Hay un buen arquitecto japonés, el señor Ishii, que me parece que está usando medidas en metros para crear la sensación de espacios más grandes, diferentes de los que producen las dimensiones estándar tradicionales de Japón.

APR: ¿Se sienten cómodos trabajando con este bagaje, las dimensiones tradicionales japonesas, cuando realizan proyectos en Europa o en Estados Unidos?

KS: En el extranjero siempre utilizamos los metros.

RN: En Estados Unidos utilizan las pulgadas. 110 pulgadas son 2,5 metros.

KS: Pero a menudo diseñamos casas utilizando los metros, o el estándar japonés de 1,8 por 0,9 por lo que no supone un gran problema. Una vez tuve que alquilar una casa tradicional para los fines de semana. Fue chocante. Para mí era la primera vez, porque me crié en una casa moderna. Era un modelo diferente, de dimensiones más pequeñas. Y me sentí cómoda.

APR: ¿Piensan que la forma tradicional japonesa de construir casas influye en las relaciones que esas casas crean entre la gente que comparte la vivienda, en las relaciones familiares? ¿Es ésa la razón por la que los occidentales sienten que su arquitectura está más conectada con la gente? ¿Qué piensan de Moriyama House?

KS: Plum Grove House, por ejemplo. Creo que los europeos no podrían vivir en ella.

Pienso también que algunos japoneses normales no podrían habitarla. Pero esta familia es muy especial y la casa les gusta mucho. Aquí no es muy común, pero en Europa no podría darse jamás.

Tanto Moriyama House como Plum Grove House son proyectos muy particulares, y es muy difícil sacar conclusiones generales de ellas. Estoy interesada en la creación de los límites. Empecé hace veinte años y siempre intento hacer tipos diferentes de límites. A veces utilizo espacios intersticiales que rodean el edificio, en el caso del onishi se establecen diferentes relaciones con el paisaje y con el edificio contorneado dependiendo de dónde te encuentres. El espacio ofrece así sensaciones diferentes, a veces te sitúas aquí y puedes sentir que estás casi implicado en el otro lado. Me gusta pensar en los límites en todos los proyectos, no en límites sólidos sino en las conexiones.

APR: A propósito de estos dos proyectos (Plum Grove House y Moriyama House), aunque también de otras casas, siempre afirman que el proceso, el desarrollo del proyecto, es muy importante para ustedes. Pero siempre tienen en cuenta el presupues-

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to y los deseos del cliente. Por lo tanto, es muy sintomático que en estas dos casas, en Plum Grove House por ejemplo, el cliente desease un gran espacio único, y en el caso de Moriyama House su primera visión fue la de una casa más nuclear. Sin embargo, los dos proyectos han sido al final muy diferentes. ¿Cómo combinan todos esos factores? Porque al final el cliente queda muy satisfecho con los resultados. ¿Dónde está el equilibrio entre los deseos de sus clientes y sus propios deseos?

RN: Sus deseos inspiran mis estudios, y creamos una solución que antes no habíamos contemplado; luego el cliente recibe otra impresión, que se convierte en un nuevo deseo. Y este nuevo deseo me inspira para encontrar otra solución. Es como una conversación. Hay algunas premisas iniciales que se van modificando para crear nuevas impresiones.

APR: Y refiriéndonos no sólo a estas dos casas, en el caso de M House, Small House, House A o Kamakura House, ¿cuál es la impresión sobre esta idea?

RN: Creo que la conversación entre el cliente y el arquitecto es lo principal, aquello que guía el proyecto. Si no tuviésemos un cliente sería muy difícil producir.

APR: Entonces crean una atmósfera especialmente para una persona, un ambiente, como ocurre con la moda de alta costura…

KS: No, no. Me gusta hacer cosas especiales para personas concretas, pero también me gusta introducir elementos para que la gente piense sobre ellos, para compartirlos como prototipo.

APR: Ahora están trabajando en un nuevo proyecto de vivienda: Flower House. Ésta es la primera vivienda que construyen fuera de Japón, ¿no es así? En mi opinión, esta casa guarda mucha relación con otros de los edificios que han construido, como Kanazawa Museum o Glass Pavillion en Toledo. ¿Cómo consiguieron insertar un espacio público en un espacio privado?

KS: Prefiero que la gente pueda encontrar espacios privados en los espacios públicos, y en una vivienda privada me gusta encontrar cierta sensación de espacio público.

RN: Moriyama House puede ser utilizada como jardín de infancia, los niños la pueden utilizar como escuela. Los museos, bibliotecas, casas o estaciones deben desarrollarse. Somos arquitectos, y por lo tanto nos ocupamos de las formas y de los volúmenes geométricos, pero puede que otra gente imagine cosas muy diferentes a partir de las formas específicas creadas por el arquitecto. Algunas de las personas que visitaron el Kanazawa Museum dijeron que el edificio podría ser utilizado como escuela primaria.

No hay ningún problema en cambiar el programa, esto ocurre a veces. Los edificios hacen que comiences a pensar en la forma de utilizarlos. Si se trata de un espacio maravilloso, la gente que lo visita empieza a imaginar cómo utilizarlo. La gente se muda con frecuencia a almacenes y los transforman en espacios para vivir, ésta es la idea.

APR: Creo que sus edificios no son espacios restringidos.

KS: Pensamos en la función pero también nos gusta pensar en un grado de libertad de esa función.

RN: Empleamos la función para crear el edificio, pero también el edificio crea la función. Es una relación muy dinámica: el edificio crea el programa, y el programa también crea el edificio. Tiene que ser recíproco.

APR: ¿Se dan cuenta de que esto no es muy común en la arquitectura tradicional?

RN: Carlo Scarpa transformó un castillo en un museo para hacer una obra maestra, así que este tipo de relación sí se ha dado con anterioridad, tal vez no en la arquitectura tradicional, pero sí en la gran arquitectura. Le Corbusier transformó la azotea de su casa en París.

APR: Una de las ideas más importantes en su trabajo es el proceso, cómo desarrollan el proceso, y en especial cómo desarrollan las maquetas. Por ejemplo, sé que para el Kanazawa Museum pidieron propuestas a todo el personal del estudio, y me gustaría saber qué es lo que ustedes piensan sobre este proceso.

RN: Una de nuestras normas básicas es que, en la fase de estudio, todas las opciones deben tener su plano y su maqueta. Aquí la gente crea varias opciones al día y hacemos las maquetas. Por eso la cantidad de maquetas es tan grande. También hacemos muchos planos, pero éstos están en el ordenador. Si los imprimiésemos, le sorprendería la cantidad de opciones que existen. Creo que si no se contemplan diferentes opciones el proyecto no existe y uno tiene que adivinarlo. Es importante verlo antes de que esté terminado. Así que utilizamos muchos materiales diferentes para imaginar lo que aparecerá, lo que está surgiendo. Los planos representan uno de los puntos de vista para entender la apariencia de los edificios, las maquetas ofrecen otros puntos de vista; éstas son las perspectivas para poder ver un proyecto que aún no existe.

APR: Pero no solamente hacen maquetas, a veces también hacen modelos a escala.

RN: Sí, pero nunca los hemos hecho para proyectos en Japón. Cuando salimos fuera, nos sorprende que casi todos los clientes europeos y estadounidenses dicen: “Hagamos un modelo a escala 1:1” (se ríe). No quiero imaginarme nada antes de ver el edificio real a escala 1:1.

APR: ¿Se trata entonces de una concesión al cliente?

KS: No, claro que nos gusta, pero en Japón el cliente dice: “Ustedes son arquitectos profesionales, deben ser capaces de verlo sin necesidad de un modelo a escala”.

APR: ¿Piensan que si el edificio no está construido, si el proyecto no existe aún, no es arquitectura? ¿O es ya arquitectura?

RN: Es arquitectura, aunque el proyecto no esté levantado todavía en el suelo.

APR: Desde mi punto de vista, sin embargo, también son arquitectura las cosas que puedes imaginar o cómo quieres conectar a las personas…

RN: Siempre intento imaginar lo que ocurrirá cuando este tipo de arquitectura esté materializada en el mundo, por eso utilizamos maquetas y planos.

APR: ¿Cómo es el proceso de hacer una maqueta detrás de otra? Se trata de seleccionar la mejor. ¿Cómo hacen esa selección?

RN: Es nuestra intuición la que decide (se ríe). La intuición es muy importante, pero también argumentamos mucho. Depende de quién esté a cargo del proyecto. Tenemos muchas charlas con los arquitectos de nuestro estudio para dar una dirección al proyecto.

KS: Intentamos buscar algo que encaje basándonos en planos, maquetas, etc. Todos son materiales para el debate. A veces nos comunicamos muy bien y encontramos una buena solución, pero otras veces, al final, optamos por otra vía. Depende del equipo, no sólo del nuestro, también trabajamos con consultores independientes, con los clientes…

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RN: Cuando iniciamos el estudio, puede que consideremos que tenemos una opción redonda y una opción rectangular. Las comparamos y nos preguntamos cuál debemos escoger. Puede que haya un montón de razones para escoger la redonda. En este caso no es muy difícil, porque hay una diferencia muy clara entre las dos. Pero una vez escogida la opción redonda, por ejemplo en Kanazawa, nos encontramos con una situación en la que hay cientos de opciones muy parecidas. Esto produce calidades diferentes entre las que tenemos que escoger. Como lo que vio en la exposición, donde había muchas maquetas muy similares. Lo que hacemos durante la fase de estudio es intentar crear normas locales, “reglas” para definir el edificio. Para Kanazawa, por ejemplo, hicimos muchas maquetas, y paulatinamente dimos con la idea de crear una extensa conexión visual que penetrase el edificio de un lado al otro para dar una sensación de transparencia. Alguien dio con esta idea en un momento dado, la idea de que deberíamos crear este tipo de penetración. Establecemos “pequeñas reglas” que incluyen también impresiones visuales. Puede que decidamos que habrá cinco formas repetidas. Esto es lo que suele ocurrir durante la fase de estudio para establecer una dirección.

KS: Para Kanazawa decidimos que el edificio sería casi redondo. Pero la redondez tiene muchas variantes. Después hacemos pequeños cambios hasta que damos con la maqueta definitiva con más detalles.

RN: No sabemos quién encontrará nuevas “reglas”. Algunas veces es Sejima quien da con ellas, otras veces es la persona encargada del proyecto. Por ejemplo, en el proyecto Lausanne alguien dijo de repente que debería haber un patio justo enfrente de la cumbre de la colina, para que la gente que mirase desde la cumbre pudiese ver el lago a través del patio y también la cubierta detrás del patio, para ofrecer una forma espacial dinámica. Si a los demás les convence la “regla”, se convierte en una pauta.

KS: Después cada uno puede hacer lo que quiera, pero deben adherirse a ella. Más tarde, en la siguiente reunión, encontramos más “reglas”, que adoptamos también.

APR: En el caso de Flower House, ¿por qué escogieron esa forma?

RN: La elección se hizo en un estadio muy temprano de la fase de estudio. Escogimos la forma de una flor y no una forma redonda porque…

KS: El diseño no es tan importante. La otra opción era una forma más desplegada, pero al final sentimos que necesitábamos algo más compacto pero que al mismo tiempo ofreciese la oportunidad de estar en contacto con el exterior. La forma del emplazamiento es un poco extraña.

RN: El cliente no quería una forma desplegada. También presentamos una opción que tenía muchos pabellones conectados a través de pasillos, y el edificio se desplegaba por toda la propiedad. El cliente opinó que era demasiado grande. Se nos ocurrió la idea de un volumen en mitad de la propiedad. Había un requisito en cuanto al jardín.

Querían tener un jardín interior que no estuviese dentro del edificio, pero que fuese íntimo. Querían que estuviese rodeado por el edificio, que estuviese fuera pero que diese la sensación de estar cercado. Ésa es la razón por la que tiene esa forma.

KS: Desde un principio dijeron que querían un jardín con una casa, no una casa con jardín.

APR: A propósito de jardines, ¿cuál es la relación que establecen con la naturaleza? ¿Intentan siempre ofrecer a la gente la oportunidad de estar en contacto con la naturaleza?

KS: A veces es la ciudad; no sólo con la naturaleza, sino también con la ciudad.

RN: En el caso de Moriyama House, una de las tendencias que se están viendo en el centro de Tokio es que los arquitectos no piensan en la relación entre la ciudad y el edificio. Simplemente hacen edificios pensando en crear el máximo volumen. Los edificios en Tokio se están haciendo cada vez más cerrados en sí mismos. No creen en el exterior, por lo tanto intentan hacerlo todo en el interior. Este tipo de tendencia produce grandes volúmenes opacos en la calle. Da a la calle unas sombras muy oscuras, y esto hace que la calle sea aún peor. Si la calle se deteriora, la gente querrá casas más cerradas. Se está dando este tipo de círculo vicioso. Los arquitectos deberían ser conscientes de ello. Uno vive en la atmósfera, no en el edificio. Uno vive en el edificio, pero dentro de una atmósfera. Para Moriyama House creamos algo diferente.

Creo que toda nuestra arquitectura tiene una relación muy íntima con la atmósfera.

Siempre intentamos encontrar la manera de relacionarlos. No hay edificios que no tengan relación con la atmósfera.

APR: ¿Es importante para ustedes que la gente de la ciudad tenga una relación con la atmósfera que la rodea? Para este proyecto, Flower House, ¿también se van a ocupar del paisaje?

KS: Las condiciones existentes creaban ya cierta atmósfera. Hay unas cuantas opciones. Añadiremos algunos árboles grandes para dar sombra y para dar al cliente mayor privacidad. En algún lugar colocaremos un jardín de flores o un huerto.

APR: Una de las características principales de Flower House es su transparencia. ¿Qué es importante para ustedes en cuanto a la transparencia? Supongo que no es sólo el hecho de ver el interior desde el exterior, sino también un juego de reflejos. ¿Se trata de la apertura?

KS: Principalmente pensamos en los límites. Un reflejo no es una pared real, pero indica un espacio diferente. El significado de la transparencia es crear relaciones diversas. No es necesariamente mirar a través. La transparencia también significa claridad, no sólo visual sino también conceptual. Hay tantas relaciones…

RN: No creo que, por ejemplo, Moriyama House parezca súper transparente. Se puede sentir la transparencia en algunos momentos, pero en la mayoría de las ocasiones se siente opacidad. No se sabe cuántas personas hay en la casa. Es más opaca que transparente. Pero pensé que sería bueno para la gente de la casa que pudiesen sentir la atmósfera que los rodea. El interior del edificio volcándose sobre el exterior crea una relación entre el proyecto y la atmósfera que lo rodea. Me gusta esa idea.

APR: Pero este es un concepto innovador para una vivienda privada. ¿Cómo presentaron esta idea al cliente?

RN: La transparencia era uno de los requisitos del cliente. Quería transparencia en la casa.

KS: Es lo opuesto al lugar donde vive ahora. Está viviendo en una casa muy antigua, así que tiene muchas ganas de vivir en una casa transparente.

APR: Puede ser que en Japón la gente esté más acostumbrada a que sus relaciones

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estén más expuestas. Cuando hablo con gente del mundo del arte, a todos nos encanta el proyecto Kanazawa, pero fuera de Japón sería imposible porque la gente es muy curiosa y estarían continuamente cotilleando los despachos.

RN: El cliente de Flower House no quiere exponer su vida privada, pero sí quiere vivir con transparencia.

KS: Puede elegir: puede abrirla completamente o puede cerrarla.

APR: Volviendo al tema del proceso y la selección, en arquitectura ustedes consideran muchas opciones para llegar a la construcción de un único proyecto. Sin embargo, al final, el proyecto construido no revela el proceso. En moda, si nos fijamos en el trabajo de Martin Margiela, Yamamoto o Rei Kawabuko, las prendas finales muestran el proceso porque los diseñadores dejan pistas o referencias. En sus edificios nadie es capaz de imaginar el proceso. Aunque se trate de una cuestión utópica, ¿sería positivo ver este proceso en arquitectura?

KS: Más o menos.

RN: Si pudieses presentar el proceso de estudio en un edificio real de forma creativa, sería genial. Pero si el resultado es chapucero, imagino que el cliente no querrá ver a semejante sufrido arquitecto en su casa. Por ejemplo, en House A se ven en el patio los cimientos de un cuarto de baño que finalmente no se construyó. Está bien tenerlos ahí.

El diseño cambió en plena fase de construcción, pero me pareció bien dejarlo ahí.

APR: Hablando de procesos…, estamos por fin (risas) terminando la producción de su exposición en el MUSAC. Para la gente del mundo del arte a veces es difícil organizar exposiciones de arquitectura. (Sejima: “No podemos hacer modelos 1:1”.)

La exposiciones de SANAA tienen siempre ciertas particularidades. Expondremos en el MUSAC este modelo a escala. El brillo es importante para ustedes. ¿Por qué esa obsesión con la luz? También expondremos trabajos en tres dimensiones en una sala y otros en dos dimensiones en otra. ¿Por qué les gusta presentar su trabajo de esta forma, en diferentes lugares?

KS: La dificultad de hacer exposiciones de arquitectura es que no podemos presentar el trabajo real; los arquitectos utilizamos pues planos y maquetas para explicar nuestro verdadero trabajo. Éste es uno de los puntos de vista. Es importante mostrar el trabajo real. Por otra parte, también es importante olvidarse de él, para que los planos y maquetas se muestren como simples planos y maquetas. Ésta es otra de las ideas de esta exposición. Queremos mostrar las maquetas como si fuesen esculturas, y los planos como si fuesen pinturas. Utilizamos un material muy genérico para intentar generar una sensación espacial. Es importante crear un equilibrio para generar esta sensación espacial.

APR: Uno de los aspectos que me gustan de esta exposición es que no presentan la arquitectura real, sino los objetos. También diseñan objetos, asientos, candelabros, espejos… ¿Cuál es su relación con el diseño? Cuando diseñan una casa, ¿desearían siempre diseñar también su contenido?

KS: El diseño es a veces, por supuesto, muy importante para el edificio. Pero no siempre es necesario ocuparse del diseño al completo. Seleccionamos siempre que sea posible. Estamos interesados en diferentes escalas, desde la pequeña hasta la grande. Para nosotros, las maquetas de papel son como esculturas.

APR: ¿Van a continuar trabajando con objetos? ¿Algún proyecto en particular?

KS: No para la siguiente exposición, pero ahora estamos diseñando mobiliario y tazas, apliques para lámparas y soportes para velas.

APR: ¿Están trabajando también en estampados?

KS: Sí.

Un FUROSHIKI para la madre de Agustín.

Otsukaresama deshita!!!!!

▪ STOP

Acaba la entrevista con un doble sentimiento de felicidad y agotamiento. Además estoy encantado con el detalle del furoshiki que han tenido conmigo. Me he sentido muy bien con ellos, y creo que ha sido divertido el encuentro en esa esquina multiusos de la mesa, con toda la problemática de hablar en una lengua que no es la lengua materna de ninguno de nosotros. Miro el cenicero que ha estado cerca de Sejima y de mí y creo que en el transcurso de estas dos horas me he fumado todos los cigarros del paquete de Sejima… Hace calor en el estudio. Sejima se levanta a abrir la ventana para airear el ambiente pero se enrolla una mantita se lana a modo de falda para no tener frío.

Ambos se despiden muy amablemente, y Sam y yo nos miramos con complicidad…

Todo ha salido bien, pero tenemos que darnos prisa, si no, no llegaremos al concierto de las Chicks on Speed en Unit, al que me han invitado. Pero antes de abrir la puerta para marchar, miro de nuevo la mesa de Sejima para hacerle un gesto de despedida y, como si fuese algo mágico, no está allí. Pero no puedo entender dónde se ha metido, ha desaparecido, se ha esfumado. Espero un rato para ver si estaba agachada y se levanta, pero nadie sale de debajo de su mesa. De nuevo pienso que esta cultura y esta casa están llenas de misterios que cada vez voy conociendo mejor.

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Casas en proceso

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Flower House This is a project for a house in a small town in Europe. The site is on a mild slope, overlooking apple orchards. The client is a couple whose children have recently grown up and moved out. For this new phase of their life, the couple wishes to settle in a small house in their garden, tailored to their needs and with a lot of light. In fact, they emphasized that it should be a garden with a house - not a house with a garden.

This led to our design of a fully transparent house, with the garden flowing through.

The program they required included a living room, a dining room, a kitchen, a bedroom, a guestroom, an office and a gym. We placed all different functions in ideal positions in relation both to the site and to each other, according to the living habits of the couple and the dimensions of their furniture. We then drew a shape that enclosed and connected these functions, while establishing smooth transition between outside and inside. The relationship between the spaces results in two internal patios – fragments of garden inside the actual volume, softly dividing functions and allowing multiple circulation patterns around the house. A guest room requiring distance from the other functions was placed in an independent volume, shielding the house from the neighboring buildings, while at the same time forming a protected garden.

Since the site slopes gently, the entire floor plate of the house is stepped, to be on the same level as the surrounding garden at all points. The roof repeats the same slope. As we wanted to provide maximum possible transparency, to allow the house to blend into the landscape, the entire facade is made of acrylic, the most transparent building material. The acrylic also serves as the main structure, in an entirely columnless building, leaving the thin roof hovering.

Garden & House This building, in a high-density district near Tokyo station, comprises both living and office space. The clients are two women editors who require an office, shared living space and individual bedrooms. The site is 8 x 4m, and buildings more than 30m tall surround it on three sides, making it much like a small dark valley surrounded by mountainous construction. Since the site is very small, we wanted to avoid further reduction of usable area that would result from using a standard structural system. As a result our concept was to make a building without walls. The final composition comprises only horizontal slabs, each floor composed of a room and a garden. The room on each of the four stories is smaller than the footprint, allowing it to be shaped and dimensioned according to its particular function. As a result the relationship between garden and floor plate shifts appropriately as you ascend the light, well ventilated residence that nestles into the dense urban fabric.

Seijo Apartments These apartments are composed of 20 small buildings, shifted to relieve their potential impact on the nearby houses. In this way, the project could be interpreted as an apartment building or as an assembly of detached houses. Each apartment spans multiple buildings that are connected to form an organic whole that masks the position and extension of each unit from the exterior. The individual apartments do not have the oblong plan typical to town houses. Their scattered arrangement generates a variation of multi-directional rooms with flexible lighting, ventilation and individual character. As a result of the shifted blocks all of the units have gardens or roof terraces, connected to form a sequence of communal spaces.

60 Location Europe Work 2006– Persons Husband and Wife Architect Kazuyo Sejima + Ryue Nishizawa / SANAA Structural engineer SAPS Structure Acrylic Energy consultant Transsolar Site area 2.500 m2 Building area 250 m2 Floor area 305 m2 Floors 1 storey, 1 basement

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Location Tokyo, Japan Work 2006– persons 2 Architect Office of Ryue Nishizawa Structural engineer Structured Environment Structure Steel frame Energy consultant Takehito Sano and Akiko Sano Site area 37,89 m2 Building area 18,89 m2 Floor area 63,21 m2 Floors 4 storeys, 1 basement

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Location Tokyo, Japan Work 2005– Units 14 Architect Kazuyo Sejima Associates Structural consultant Taisei corporation Structure Reinforced concrete Site area 1397,09 m2 Building area 419,89 m2 Floor area 1468,75 m2 Floors 3 storeys, 1 basement

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Okurayama Apartments The project is an apartment complex building near Okurayama station about 10 minutes by train from Yokohama. There are 9 units, each about 50 m2 on a 450 m2 site.

Approximately 2 people will occupy each of the apartments. We sought to create a layered and stacked series of homes. Gardens and rooms intermingle with each other comfortably. Bedrooms, living-dining rooms, bathrooms, terraces and gardens for each unit interact with the surroundings on all sides. Each unit has a bright and open atmosphere, collectively connecting to surrounding gardens, spreading the activities of the residents evenly across the whole site.

Ichikawa Apartments This design for an apartment building located near Tokyo is three stories tall and accommodates six dwelling units. The basic structure is composed of curved walls that undulate in both the perpendicular and horizontal axis, dissolving the rigidity of spatial arrangement that often characterizes apartment blocks. As a result, three unit types were integrated: three-storey, maisonette and flat type. The space within each unit appears to expand and contract according to the function of the space, establishing an independent rhythm through each of the dwelling units. The distortion of the walls through the full height of the building allows each unit to contain volume as necessary: for example, a unit with a smaller ground floor can obtain a larger space on the upper level and vice versa. This amorphous interior within a simple cubic volume allows the building to sit subtly among the row-houses which surround it, while establishing maximum diversity and flexibility within the apartment house typology.

House in China This is a design for a house within a vast residential compound in the outskirts of Tainjin City in China. Occupying a corner of a development master-planned by Riken Yamamoto, this detached house has a total floor area of 600 square metres. In an attempt to realize the potential of so expansive a residential space, activities that would have to be overlaid or omitted in a small house were cemented in the plan: a gallery, basketball court, hothouse, tearoom, vestibule, breakfast room and study. These weave through the house, punctuated with courtyards, establishing a diaphanous relationship between interior and exterior space. This project provides a framework for a horizontal lifestyle that permits an unconstrained system of circulation within a mesh of diverse activity fields. Furthermore the rooms are distributed within a grid system, permitting continuous views through the building. As a result, the house, despite its size, appears to rest lightly on the site, framing views of the landscape beyond.

Eda Apartments This is a collective housing project comprising of 100 units. The site is on a residential district in the suburbs of Tokyo characterised by rows of low-rise houses. Its major characteristics are its railway frontage and the height differences across the site. The building is raised one floor above ground level by means of piloti, creating a sheltered area that provides access to each of the units. In order to shelter the apartments from the station, the apartments are lit and ventilated from internal courtyards, subtly manipulated to avoid conflicting sightlines between residences. Light passing through the irregularly shaped courtyards animates the open space below the building volume and establishes it as a dynamic communal space. The design incorporates several grids into the plan, grids that run parallel to the surrounding roads, the railway lines and the train station plaza respectively. These various grids are integrated with curved and winding lines and give rise to units with diverse individual forms, independence and privacy.

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Location Okurayama, Japan Work 2006 Units 10 Architect Kazuyo Sejima Associates Structural eng. SSC / Sasaki Structural Consultants Structure Reinforced concrete Energy consultant Morimura Sekkei Site area 457.77 m2 Building area 207,20 m2 Floor area 553.11 m2 Floors 4 storeys

Location Ichikawa, Japan Work 2001– Units 4 Architect Office of Ryue Nishizawa Structure Steel frame, reinforced concrete Site area 327,30 m2 Building area 100 m2 Floor area 268,50 m2 Floors 3 storeys

Location Tanguu, Tianjin, China Work 2003– Architect Office of Ryue Nishizawa Structural eng. Plus One Structural Des. & Eng. Firm Structure Reinforced concrete Site area 233,33 m2 Building area 609,61 m2 Floor area 627,25 m2 Floors 1 storey

Location Yokohama, Japan Work 2002– Units 100 Dwelling unit area 24–102 Architect Office of Ryue Nishizawa Structural eng. SSC / Sasaki Structural Consultants Structure Steel frame and reinforced concrete Energy consultant Kankyo Engineering Site area 3.195 m2 Building area 2.162 m2 Floor area 8.860 m2 Floors 4 storeys, 1 basement

Flower House  Kazuyo Sejima + Ryue Nishizawa / SANAA

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building in site model

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1:2 model, produced by MUSAC

1:2 model, produced by MUSAC

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1:2 model, produced by MUSAC

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plan and section, scale 1:200

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models for consideration in Tokyo

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reflections inside the house and view to the adjoining orchard

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1:2 model, produced by MUSAC

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maqueta 1:2 model, a escala produced 1:2,byproducida MUSAC por el MUSAC

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Garden & House  Office of Ryue Nishizawa

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section, scale 1:100

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plans, scale 1:100

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illustrated plans, scale 1:100

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Seijo Apartments  Kazuyo Sejima & Associates

model in section

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plans, scale 1:400

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80 study models

A living room connecting two courtyards

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two rooms connected at their corners

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Okurayama Apartments  Kazuyo Sejima & Associates

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site plan, scale 1:300

activities taking place throughout the building

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Ichikawa Apartments  Office of Ryue Nishizawa

plans and section, scale 1:200

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one living / dining room

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House in China  Office of Ryue Nishizawa

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plan, scale 1:250

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basketball court in the middle among other functions

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diagrammatic plan. all spaces can be specifically programmed

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Eda Apartments  Office of Ryue Nishizawa

building elevated and closed to the outside

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ground floor plan showing staircases and piloti space, scale 1:600. apartment plans showing various points of reference, scale 1:600

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view up through courtyard

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Finished Projects

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House A This house in central Tokyo is located on a narrow site that stretches along a northsouth axis. It is lit primarily from the south, where the dense urban fabric opens onto a vast empty plot. The shape and size of each of the required rooms was decided upon according to the function and furniture layout required and then distributed along the site as blocks, shifted along the short access to establish a fragmented edge that allows light to penetrate to the centre of each space. Given that the client lives alone and requested that the design allow for entertaining guests and having friends spend the night, we looked to create a predominantly social environment.

Each room has the character of a living room and the hierarchy of domestic space is established primarily by the relationship between double and single height spaces clustered along the site.

S House This private house, located in the suburbs of a provincial city four hours from Tokyo by train, houses parents, two children and their grandparents. The client requested that this cohabitation of two families be reflected in the design, while a large living and dining room be integrated to allow all inhabitants to have dinner together and to encourage communication between generations. The two-storey cube is composed of a residential core surrounded by a double height corridor. The bedrooms are located at ground level and the single space that serves as both living and dining room is above it. The corridor can be termed a “semi-external space”, with sand on the floor and corrugated polycarbonate walls. This passageway connects each room at ground level and at the same time acts as a buffer zone that mediates outdoor temperatures.

The partitions between the corridor and rooms are folding doors at ground level and comprised of louvers on the floor above, permitting a flexible relationship between spaces. All of the rooms are gathered at the center of the house, but because each is connected only by means of the surrounding corridor this spatial intimacy is experienced as physical distance and establishes privacy between rooms.

House in a Plum Grove This is a small house for a young couple, two children, and their grandmother. The site is located within a quiet residential quarter on the outskirts of Tokyo. The family requested a house that would feel like a single connected space and preserve the existing landscape, characterized by young plum trees. In response we have minimized the building volume and located it in the center of the site, preserving the periphery and its trees. As a rule residential projects tend to have a fixed correlation between the number of occupants and number of rooms. In this project, however, each function was given its own room, independent but overlooking one another. The building is neither a cluster of many small rooms, nor one big room, but establishes something in-between. The experience is a unique combination of connectivity and privacy.

The walls between rooms are structural steel plates minimized to a thickness of 16mm. The exterior walls use the same 16mm structural panel with insulation and gypsum board, their total thickness only 50mm. Thin walls are a prerequisite for this design, both functionally and experientially: they consume the least space and allow for multiple openings to be carved out, without the walls themselves expressing physical presence.

128 Location Tokyo, Japan Work 2004–2006 Persons 1 Architect Office of Ryue Nishizawa Structural engineer SSC / Sasaki Structural Consultants Structure Steel frame Energy consultant Takehito Sano and Akiko Sano Site area 123,30 m2 Building area 71,70 m2 Floor area 89,50 m2 Floors 2 storeys, 1 basement

Location Okayama Japan Work 1995–1996 Persons 3 Architect Kazuyo Sejima + Ryue Nishizawa / SANAA Structural engineer O.R.S Office Structure Wood Energy consultant System Design Laboratory Site area 131,32 m2 Building area 86,85 m2 Floor area 142,39 m2 Floors 2 storeys

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Small House This house, as the name suggests, is situated on a micro-sized plot in one of the most attractive areas in downtown Tokyo. The family that commissioned the house had a clear vision of the program, which we divided into four main functions. Each was allocated a floor slab of appropriate size and these were stacked on the site. The open stair core is the main structural element and is also used as a soft partition to further subdivide the four main spaces: a bedroom, space for the child, living/kitchen/dining, and terrace with bath. Shifting the centre of gravity of each of the floors and its relationship to the core is enough to have a major impact on the character of the spaces.

These design decisions were fine-tuned in relation to several additional parameters: the relationship between interior and exterior, parking and the need for a small terrace at basement level. The total form results from using sloping walls to join the shifted slabs and determining the position of windows in relation to the various forms of adjacent outdoor space.

Moriyama House Moriyama House is located in a traditional part of Tokyo where daily life continues in a typical urban structure. There are more than ten volumes on the site each accommodating different requirements. These volumes are independent from one another and are scattered across the site creating a series of connected individual gardens, open to the surroundings. All of the buildings might some day be used by Mr. Moriyama.

Currently some are rented creating a small community of little dwellings. This group of individually proportioned buildings establishes an independent landscape and atmosphere all its own.

Location Tokyo, Japan Work 2001–2003 Persons Mother, Father, Son, Daughter, Grandmother Architect Kazuyo Sejima Associates Structural eng. SSC / Sasaki Structural consultants Structure Steel plate Site area 92,30 m2 Building area 37,20 m2 Floor area 77,68 m2

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Location Tokyo, Japan Work 1999–2000 Persons Mother, Father, and Daughter Architect Kazuyo Sejima Associates Structure SSC / Sasaki Structural Consultants Site area 60,03 m2 Building area 34,51 m2 Floor area 76,98 m2 Floors 3 storeys, 1 basement

Location Tokyo, Japan Work 2002–2005 Units Variable 1-6 Architect Office of Ryue Nishizawa Structural engineer Structured Environment Structure Steel plate Energy consultant Kankyo Engineering Site area 290,07 m2 Building area 130,06 m2 Floor area 263,08 m2 Floors 3 storeys, 1 basement (various)

House A  Office of Ryue Nishizawa

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the house in morninng light

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retractable roof creates indoor / outdoor living room

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illustrated plan where every space has the ability to function like a living room

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section, scale 1:50

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model in elevation, eastern facade

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S House  Kazuyo Sejima + Ryue Nishizawa / SANAA

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plans, scale 1:100

polycarbonate faรงades seen from across the street

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House in a Plum Grove  Kazuyo Sejima & Associates

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a prefabricated wall being brought into the house

study model in development (from top left, clockwise) roof garden, tatami room, double hieght master bedroom, double hieght study, bedroom, and bathroom. In actual construction the bathroom and bedroom have switched places and the roof garden is covered over with sod.

daughter’s rooms

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son’s bedroom

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ground floor, scale 1:60

model showing door leading to part of the plum grove

living / dining room

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Small House  Kazuyo Sejima & Associates

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detailed section, scale 1:75

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Moriyama House  Office of Ryue Nishizawa

one building seemed too big, as such, we divided the program into separate units

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east and north elevations, scale 1:250

A view from the building previously located on the site. the red roof in the foreground to the left was demolished to make way for the new house.

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neighborhood

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division map

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a radically different option that was not taken

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cardboard model shown in exhibition at the 21st century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa

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planting study in early design option

under construction

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ground floor plan scale, 1:200

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view out of kitchen into Moriyama’s courtyard

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a playground in the neighborhood

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Northeastern edge of house

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Reinterpreting traditional aesthetic values Kristine Guzmán

In 1950, when Mies van der Rohe built the Farnsworth House, the whole world was left aghast before those nude glass panels opening out onto the forest. Supporters of Mies saw an architectural revolution in that work, the apex of his philosophy of “less is more” —an abstract theme on structure, skin and space—; while many others criticized the lack of intimacy in an architecture that is highly private, in an era where the prevailing International Style was considered a “threat to the New America.”

Several decades later, Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa (SANAA) create an architecture defined by visual lightness, in a way, an echo of that house

by Mies in the middle of the American forest. However, unlike the old German master, these very characteristics of lightness and transparency that have given SANAA international recognition did not arouse any controversy, not even in their native Japan where clients’ demands are rooted in tradition and customs carry most weight.

“Japan-ness” The Japanese architect Arata Isozaki wrote a book entitled Japan-ness in Architecture, where he analyses how some modern Japanese architects try to create something uniquely Japanese, rooted in tradition but from the perspective of modernity. This Japan-ness arose from an external gaze created by the West, “not more or less than a revolution in the way of seeing of the Europeans,” as written by Edmond de Goncourt in the pages of his personal diary on April 18, 1884. A notion of Japanese taste materialized from typical objects normally collected by the Europeans, as expressed in pictorial motives, ornamental backgrounds or the flatness of figures in the pictorial space: all considered exotic to the eyes of the West. The concepts related to their production thus arise from here: simplicity, modesty, purity, lightness and sophisticated austerity. “While Japan had its peak in the sixteenth century and subsequently lost that height of perfection as its culture struggled to come to terms with the most rapid period of industrialisation any society has known.“ In the 20th century, with the country’s modernization, exchange with the West and the security that resulted from prosperity, Japan adopted Western modernism in its architecture, while it looked for ways to express some of those earlier sensibilities in a contemporary manner. This search inspired architects such as Kenzo Tange and later Tadao Ando, champions of integrating the aesthetic values of traditional Japanese architecture within a modern architecture. According to the architect Kisho Kurokawa, the archi

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Pawson, John, Minimum (Londres: Phaidon, 2003), p.11.

tectural past is inherited through the expression of invisible ideas, aesthetics, ways of life and historic memories behind historic forms and symbols, “manipulated intellectually, creating a mode of expression characterized by abstraction, irony, wit, twists, gaps, sophistication, and metaphor.”

The Traditional Japanese House The house is the basic element in the local community; Japan’s sociological unit is the home, not the family. Xavier Roca-Ferrer’s notes to the Tale of Genji , the great masterpiece of Japanese literature, illustrate the values of Japanese culture and their adaptation to architecture: “The houses where Genji and all the aristocrats who swarmed the court of Heian lived were of the type known as shinden. This type of construction, of a totally Japanese character, elevated above ground by posts in the manner of trowel constructions to stave off humidity, interlocked or covered with wooden silt ceiling beams, is distinguished by the lightness of its appearance. They are usually on a single floor and their average dimensions are approximately two hectares. Each mansion consists of a number of independent rectangular constructions connected by covered corridors or sanded pathways (...)

When the weather is fair, the rooms of a Japanese house open up completely to the exterior, becoming totally integrated with the garden (...)

The Japanese like to live in close contact with nature and the structure of their homes bears proof to this taste.”

In order to understand the configuration of the typical Japanese house, one must have a basic knowledge of their culture; a culture that has been shaped throughout history by religious beliefs and philosophic principles, as well as by Chinese constructive ideas, from which they inherited the typical wooden pillar and beam construction. Thus, spirituality might become the key element of any construction, adapting everyday life to concepts and orders preserved over the centuries.

SANAA builds the world over. Their architectural solutions are largely indifferent to localization, culture or history, creating a contemporary global architecture, much like the International Style established by modern architects such as Le Corbusier or Mies van der Rohe. However, SANAA’s architecture may signify a new constructive vision of tradition itself, subtly and perhaps unconsciously applying features of traditional Japanese architecture, an aesthetic created in any case by stereotypes marked by the West and carried through to the present.

Kurokawa, Kisho, The Philosophy of Simbiosis . (Tokyo: Tokuma Publishing Co., 1987), p. 59.

Shikibu, Murasaki, La novela de Genji (Barcelona: Ediciones Destino, 2005), p.133, note by Xavier Roca-Ferrer.

Transparency Transparency is an ally of light, which in turn is an “agnostic instrument to describe the spirituality and otherness of architecture.” It is perhaps the word that best defines SANAA’s works, since they frequently resort to that which is extremely light, or to an interplay of reflections that often obscures orientation within a building.

However, this transparency not only refers to the effect obtained by the use of glass – or any other transparent material – although this has almost become their hallmark, present in many of their commercial, institutional and residential projects. What SANAA is searching for is “some kind of transparency without transparent material (…) through for example some kind of planning method.” On a constructive level, by eliminating the usual structural elements such as columns and transferring their supporting functions to those other indispensable elements in design, they generate open spaces or create a diversity of relations through elements that visually or conceptually connect spaces. The honesty in the expression of structure is such that in the Small House (Kazuyo Sejima, Tokyo, Japan, 1999–2000) and in the Plum Grove House (Kazuyo Sejima, Tokyo, Japan, 2001–2003), the structural elements have been transferred onto walls reduced to their minimum thickness, producing a great impact on very limited construction areas, and suggesting lightness with their multiple perforations. However, in the Y House (Kazuyo Sejima, Katsura, Chiba, Japan, 1993–94) as well as in the Gifu Kitagata Apartments (Kazuyo Sejima, Gifu, Japan, 1994– 2000), the large windows and openings penetrate the whole width of the building, insinuating visual continuity with the urban landscape.

Harmony with Nature In these urban landscapes, nature and the surroundings always have their place. Beauty may be discovered in the random occurrences of nature as well as in the forms perfected by man. The simultaneous cultivation and conscious superposition of both can be found in the right angles of a rice paper panelled door frame, a veranda that surrounds an entire house, or bridges with crafted view points that serve to best contemplate a group of rocks, a tree weathered by time, a lake or a relaxing waterfall. The Japanese have a close relation to nature due to shintô practices, and this constant infiltration – or penetration – of architecture into nature, and vice versa, is one of the characteristics of SANAA’s work.

Perhaps this idea has a lot to do with the engawa , the covered elevated platform that serves as the traditional Japanese house’s porch or veranda.

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Pawson, John, Minimum (Londres: Phaidon, 2003), p.14.

Zaera, Alejandro, “Una conversación” included in El Croquis 77 (Madrid, 2001), p.17.

In SANAA’s case, this idea has been reformulated to create spaces that are exterior and interior at the same time, such as the lattice-covered corridors of the M-House (Kazuyo Sejima, Tokyo, Japan, 1996-97) —external corridors that connect interior spaces—, or the semi-exterior gallery of the S-House (Kazuyo Sejima, Okayama, Japan, 1997), planned as an interior perimeter corridor and, nonetheless, treated as if it were an external space, with the use of a natural sand floor finish and walls that flood the house with light.

Both in urban areas with limited plots and on sites in the middle of forests, SANAA have an almost sacred respect for nature. They demonstrate this by preserving the trees that surround the Plum Grove House (Kazuyo Sejima, Tokyo, Japan, 2001), or maintaining a landscaped environment around the Moriyama House (Ryue Nishizawa, Tokyo, Japan, 2002–2005). However, it is in the House for the Practical Exhibition on Architecture in China (SANAA, Nanjing, China, 2004– ), where they have most subtly intervened in the environment, with its undulating forms that sometimes touch the ground and are slightly elevated because, “the space of Japanese architecture is a space that is given by nature (…) is not that which is based upon a human will to three-dimensionality.”

Ma: Space and Time Jun’ichirö Tanizaki, in his book In Praise of Shadows (1933–34), analyses various characteristics of Japanese culture, where the essence lies in capturing shadows. Tanizaki maintains that shadows —or darkness— affect not only space, but also time. This interdependence between space and time has a fundamental impact on the nature of the arts and architecture, as Sigfried Giedion established in Space, Time and Architecture.

The experience that SANAA intends to achieve depends on intermediate spaces; spaces that occasionally act as stimuli for activity. This idea comes from the concept of the park, a place “that offers something for everybody and can absorb different generations, people of different social backgrounds, individuals or groups.” Public buildings are limited by predetermined norms and functions, and SANAA intends to create a certain liberty, letting the users stroll or carry out any other activity at will, aside from the space’s formal uses. In this way, through architecture, this space is produced in time.

In domestic architecture, SANAA creates numerous spaces and openings that provide their inhabitants the freedom to generate new relationships or Tange, Kenzo, “Gendai Kenchiku no Sôzô to Nihon Kenchiku no Dentô (Contemporary Architectural Creation and the Japanese Architectural Tradition)” included in Shen-kenchiku, June 1956.

Feiress, Kristin, “An Interview with Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa” included in Feiress, Kristin (Ed.), The Zollverein School of Management and Design , (Munich: Prestel, 2006), p. 62.

sociological behaviour. In most cases, these spaces look out onto the exterior, such as in the N-House (Kumamoto, Kumamoto, Japan, 1991-92) or onto interior gardens such as in the Weekend House (Gunma, Japan, 1997-98), in a call to meditation, to the contemplation of the flow of time itself, without necessarily referring to any religious considerations. SANAA’s architecture, as in Buddhist thought, evokes the spirit through the formal transformation of art as a medium to influence the human interior.

Mono no aware In the same way, this formal transformation finds its meaning in the Miesian principle of creation that is “aimed at liberating things from their isolation and transposing them into an ordering system that imparts a higher meaning to its otherwise disparate elements. By means of this building order an architecture of spiritual references emerges.” Perhaps, the essential meaning of architecture is based on this, in providing “the horizon to understand and confront the existential human condition (…) granting us an experience of ourselves as corporal and spiritual beings.”

The same building philosophy may be appreciated in SANAA’s architecture, where the simple gesture of a line may unite environment and edifice; or where the apparent signs of human activity may create a spatial rhythm that liberates architectural elements from their respective limitations, always changing and renewing themselves with the active participation of nature and people.

At the same time, this transcendence can be seen in the passage of time, with the natural ageing of things and with the sense of materiality, although the materials normally used by SANAA do not tend to incorporate a temporal dimension. If transcendence cannot be appreciated in the very materiality of architecture, the process that brings about its realization —SANAA’s very working procedures, that imply continuous and repetitive programs with complicated solutions that gradually evolve until they become something simple— may seem like a process of purification, of reduction, until they find the essence of things.

Emptiness “The Japanese way of sensing space, in which depth comprises layers of planes without regard to graduated perspective”10 is due to the ancient Eastern notion of omnipresent emptiness. The process of emptying space starts with an investigation on technology, when the smallest detail has Neumeyer, Franz, The Artless Word: Mies van der Rohe Building Art (Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 1991).

Pallasmaa, Juhani, Los ojos de la piel (Barcelona: Gustavo Gili, 2006), p.11.

10 Isozaki, Arata, Japan-ness in Architecture (Massachussets: MIT, 2000), p. 8.

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been reduced to its essentials through an intense process of simplification and reduction, a formal and, at the same time, conceptual depuration.

It is the result of the omission of the superfluous, an emptiness that is not “something vague and inexistent, but an eminently dynamic and active element.”11 According to the architects, “in order to think about the information society there seems to be a relationship to the idea of dimension or the effect of the mass or the volume on us.”12 The wall is reduced to its minimum, to eliminate the hierarchy that exists between structure and partition, in a way that the weight of materiality of each of the elements —plan, door or wall— may be the same. In other cases, unnecessary interior interferences are totally disregarded in order to open up the space to perception, as in the case of the Small House (Kazuyo Sejima, Tokyo, Japan, 1999–2000), where the main structural system is to be found in the stairwell, or in the Moriyama House (Ryue Nishizawa, Tokyo, Japan, 2002–05) where the grouping of independent —and nonetheless interdependent— structures reminds us of the plurality of communicated independent constructions of Heian Houses. Hierarchy is also obliterated in the A-House (Ryue Nishizawa, Tokyo, Japan, 2004– ) where all rooms have the same dimension, thus not assigning a space’s function according to its size. As Arata Isozaki explains in his book Kukan-e , “the traditional Japanese way of sensing space teaches us this. The spatiality of kawai and kehai (sign, or a not-yet-manifest indication of something), where demarcation remains vague and in-flux —here is an origin of an imagination that countenances an undifferentiated, intuitive space going well beyond any mere mechanistic articulation—. This is reemphasized by the condition of contemporary space filled with continuous and invisible electronic impulses trafficking and communicating with one another.”13 This link between the idea of information culture and certain notion of flexibility is explained in the book Blurring Architecture by Toyo Ito, where he reflects on space in 21st century architecture based on the Modern Movement, and says that an architecture that serves as a bridge between a biological and an electronic body must have “a floating nature that allows for changes over time (…) because in today’s floating society it is absolutely essential to do away with borders based on simplified functions and establish a relationship of overlapping spaces.”14

11 Cheng, Francois, Vacío y Plenitud , (Madrid: Ediciones Siruela, 2005), p. 68.

12 Zaera, Alejandro, “Una conversación” included in El Croquis 77 (Madrid, 2001), p.16.

13 Isozaki, Arata, “Method of Urban Design”, included in Kukan-e ( Toward Space ) (Tokio: Kajima Shuppan Kai, 1997), p. 118.

14 Ito, Toyo, Arquitectura de límites difusos (Barcelona: Editorial Gustavo Gili, 2006), p. 28.

Traditional Values in a Contemporary World If it is true that “there is a lot about SANAA that is specifically the product of their Japanese roots,”15 the continuity of tradition linked to the evolutionary process of culture itself and the adaptation of other concepts of habitation have paved the way for a plural and hybrid architecture, extracting fragments from historical forms and simplifying them, in order to apply them freely later on, unconsciously adapting them to some contemporary global necessities that are the results of an exhaustive study of each program. These programs are based on functions that create the building, but at the same time, it is the building itself that can dictate new functions.

In the same way that technological advances have changed our life and attitudes towards the value of time, SANAA’s houses are capable of transforming a person’s way of life, or the relationships between its inhabitants.

Through their architecture, they question the concepts of intimacy, new family structures, the demarcation of public and private space, or the very physicality of a structure. They provide us with what is essential to live at the same time they create “prototypes” with solutions that are outside the conventional concepts of home.

Five decades have passed since the construction of the Farnsworth House.

In this time, the world has learned to open itself up to new forms of construction and to experiment what remains to be discovered. SANAA lives in this time, where practical necessities have acquired greater importance than spiritual needs. However, tradition has played an unconscious role in all their works, where they try to find the harmony dictated by opposing poles of light and shadow, naturalness and artificiality, exterior and interior.

Their concern for the human condition in contemporary society has led them to search for creative solutions in accordance with current technology and to discover new configurations, forms and functions in architecture, to the point where they create new domestic behaviours, acceptable to the most conservative of cultures.

15 Sudjic, Deyan, “The Lightness of Being” included in Feiress, Kristin (Ed.), The Zollverein School of Management and Design (Munich: Prestel, 2006), p. 46.

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SANAA in dreams

Luis Fernández-Galiano Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa’s architecture is in the limits. It does not reside in modelled space or in sculptured volume, nor does it rely on articulating elements or on the gravity of matter: it effortlessly inhabits the borders of encounter, which slim down implausibly, becoming nearly virtual; whether they be glass, steel or concrete, the enclosures of their precise precincts aspire to the condition of mathematical surfaces. This extreme abstraction is the ultimate source of the fascination inspired by the Japanese pair’s architecture. Their construction at the limit is essentially architecture in the negative, achieved through a stripping-down: buildings strive to divest themselves of thickness, dispense with inertia, rid themselves of density. The process generates objects with an immaterial appearance, metaphysical in that they transcend the realm of the senses’ standard conventions, and dreamlike in so far as they reside along the vague border between sleep and waking.

A weightless and superficial work that pursues gravity in the air and depth in the skin: the supreme elegance and exquisite refinement of these projects ultimately derive from this slender weightlessness, always on the verge of vanishing. Walls with hardly any thickness and pillars that are impossibly lean, boxes within boxes that decompose intro reflections and cubes stacked in the precarious balance of levity, cells disembodied by their own transparency and random squares where geometrical rigour is subjected to a discipline of disappearance. Against the solar solidity of architectures that play the wise and magnificent game of volumes under light, these ethereal works flaunt the moon-drenched paleness of night spirits and an evanescent fragility that a Romantic sensibility would have hailed as feminine, but today is more readily associated with the ungraspable appeal of fashion, or to that touch me not of an unachievable ghostly luxury.

If material divestment and geometrical purity point towards the aesthetic path to illumination through renunciation and link these elusive objects to a mysticism that the Western media is all too keen to tag with the fuzzy term of zen, the works’ translucent levity also bonds their aesthetic progress with the mutating volubility of the contemporary, and with an absence of roots inherent to a culture that oscillates with the flicker of a TV screen. Archaic in its essentialist rigour and cutting-edge in its epidermal levity, SANAA’s work also accommodates a critical approach, where stark divestment can be read as a rejection of the compulsive consumerism that crams spaces and lives with unnecessary commodities, and where an extreme anorexia of all things physical may spell out a deliberate exacerbation of a modern

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dissolution of references and certainties in a weightless virtual labyrinth.

Half way between the penitentiary cell and the glamour showcase, these ambidextrous architectures carry their oxymoronic nature proudly, making a double statement in favour of distance and integration. Whether it be a museum or a private home, each project is governed by its internal laws of laconism, leaving it up to the spectator to decide if it contains an invitation to spiritual improvement through the exclusion of all things superfluous, or rather an incitation to the sophisticated exhibitionism of high-range minimalism. It is certainly tempting to postulate that SANAA intends to improve us through their starkness and represent us with their levity, but it is not so clear whether we can make both statements at once: “the work is austere so as to make us austere” and “the work is weightless because we are weightless” are not contradictory statements, yet they are hard to wed in a creative process, however multifaceted the underlying intention may be.

Kazuyo Sejima entered the history of Architecture with the Saishunkan women’s residence, a dormitory for 80 young female workers that generated a dual shock: one related to the programme itself (a corporate convent where working units are subjected to workshop discipline, patriarchal protection and the permanent supervision of a Foucaultian institution), and another brought about by the profession’s interpretation, which exacerbated the project’s panoptical and penitentiary nature with chilling precision.

Those translucent cells, aligned within a container of icy perfection, displayed the unnerving schematism of a constructed diagram, justifying mentor Toyo Ito’s comparison of Sejima’s insubstantial spaces with virtual videogame architecture, only apt for android bodies lacking in scent and warmth.

Inexpressive and nearly inhuman, the work illustrated the uniformity and anonymity of a society created by information technology, becoming an overnight icon of digital architecture.

At the residence, Sejima was still heightening her indifferent spaces by means of the pastel colours, waves and ovals she had used in her initial experiments with the Platforms (two holiday homes gymnastically elevated like balancing folies that combined Archigram and Ito’s Pao for nomad women with a Memphis aesthetic, the neo-Fifties Koolhaas and La Villette’s deconstructivist Tschumi). These niceties, however, would gradually be purged out of her later works, to arrive at the monochrome homotopias she is known for today. A universe of geometrical rigour and Cartesian cold blood epitomised by her apartments at Gifu, arranged through a freakish isotropic mesh into a slim block revealing both social anomie and the potential transparency of dwellings that are as regimented as the workers’ quarters at Saishunkan: immaterial and repeated lodgings for interchangeable and weightless lives.

The two museums built as a first fruit of Sejima’s association with Ryue Nishizawa (the O Museum in Nagano and the N Museum in Wakayama), as well as the café in the park at Ibaraki, take the divestment strategy to its last consequences. Enclosures progressively disintegrate, the structure is disaggregated into elements of nearly imperceptible dimensions and volumes are dematerialised, either by fragmenting the programme into a spatial network with no corridors (as in the later project for a theatre at Almere, or the recently completed architectural onomatopoeia that is the Glass Pavilion at the Toledo Museum of Art in Ohio), or by stratifying uses in individual boxes that do not touch the perimeter (as in the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art at Kanazawa, their most important project to date). It is precisely this last building –a circular precinct enclosing a number of prisms and courtyards divided by walkways and orchestrated in a way that is random only in appearance–, where SANAA’s complex simplicity is displayed most convincingly. Disappearance here is not achieved by means of shadows or stage-crafted transparency, but rather through the indifferent extrusion of an entirely immaterial ground plan.

Ultimately, the stacks that make up the Dior flagship store in Tokyo (with the elusive expression of the cast edges on the front) or the New Museum of Modern Art in New York (with its displaced metal mesh boxes simulating a precarious balance) seek weightlessness through the dissolution of scale made possible by the use of a variable section. However, this yearning for levity is not as easily achieved in vertical urban projects, entirely different from the low-lying, landscaped pavilions that had previously dominated the studio’s work. The Zollverein School of Design, with its extraordinary cube, may serve as an intermediate example. Here, the variable section shared with the Dior building or the New York museum is not expressed on the exterior, but rather masked by a façade perforated by randomly positioned square openings of varying dimensions. In this case, immateriality is found through the extreme slimness of the enclosures (possible thanks to the use of hot water coils integrated into the façade using a radiating floor technique) and the provocative disarray of openings, which conceal any trace of tectonic logic. The building thus becomes a bold but weightless icon of the Ruhr Valley’s post-industrial regeneration.

The same quest for an airy, atmospheric architecture is to be found in a number of homes designed independently by each architect: Sejima’s airtight and translucent House S, shielded by a polycarbonate gallery; her dazzling construction in a plum grove, where enclosures and structure blend over a number of layers of steel sheet perforated by gaps to provide a theatrical stage that is implausibly weightless for family living; or even Nishizawa’s fragmented Moriyama House, where rooms to let are spread over the plot

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like an orchestra of boxes in the garden. These cells or precincts are so fierce in their purity that they appear incompatible with the haphazard turmoil of everyday life, let alone with the consumerist hoarding of commodities, rags and gadgets captured by photographer Kyoichi Tsuzuki in his series Happy Victims, of rooms swamped in brand items and accessories that are the object of their occupants’ compulsive buying; or with the impenetrably saturated chaos of manga and electronics that are the rooms of the otaku , an urban subculture of young people locked in a self-centred cocoon of physical and mental isolation.

Critics such as Hajime Yatsuka have linked the simplicity of SANAA’s architecture and their lack of spatial and semantic depth with the abbreviated representation of manga comics. Their diagrammatic schematics and extreme slimness (“physical slenderness is very important to me,” Sejima was reported as saying in an interview), has been related to Takashi Murakami’s post-modern Orientalism: a pop artist who, saddling both the alternative underground and designs for Louis Vuitton, has given the language of animé and manga a commercial reading through his ‘superflat’ style, developed on the basis of Poku (pop + otaku). However, a bond established solely on the basis of Sejima and Nishizawa’s ‘superflatness’ would not suffice to justify describing them in the same terms of shallow hedonism and deeprooted nihilism that drove Murakami’s success.

If we are to tread the slippery path of cultural connections, I would rather seek them in the other Murakami, who portrays contemporary Japan’s spiritual vacuity, loneliness and consumerism in that primary yet complex language that links Kafka to Salinger or Carver. His exploration of contemporary values through a hypnotic, jovial and surreal cocktail of lyrical levity, atmospheric sensuality and attention to material detail are perhaps a better parallel to SANAA’s architecture. When Haruki Murakami was awarded the prize named after the Czech author in 2006 (immediately after Harold Pinter and Elfriede Jelinek), many posited him as the next Japanese Nobel prizewinner, the third after Yasunari Kawabata and Kenzaburo Oe. It would not be unreasonable to place a similar wager on Kazuyo Sejima who, together with Ryue Nishizawa, has created a body of work so extreme, subtle and representative of our time that it must by now be beeping on the list of the highest distinctions. SANAA’s immaterial and laconic work would hold as a firm link at the very limit of that chain of voices and silences.

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Radical Practices in constructing Relationships Yuko Hasegawa

Incomprensible Architecture SANAA’s architectures embrace complexities within deceptively simple appearances. The complexities arise from intangible and mysterious elements rather than apparently complex structures and architectural themes.

One needs to go into another dimension beyond three-dimensional and spatial structure in order to understand their architectural creation. Then what is the fourth dimension? It is rather an ordinary idea to add a “chronological dimension” to the three dimensions in space. This fourth dimension is often referred using various metaphors. For example, Harald Szeeman, a curator, said that modernism represents an example of three-dimensional art, based on masculine principles, and four-dimensional art belongs to feminine principles embracing what is not visible.

SANAA’s architecture has many elements that are impossible to understand unless one actually “experiences” it. In contrast with modern architecture, SANAA has many aspects that cannot be revealed in “representative” media such as plans, models, and photographs. In other words, the “representations” of their architectural works, incorporate ambiguity and chronological elements. They are explorations of parallel stories and visions rather than “representations.”

Three Elements In another text, I wrote about SANAA’s flexibility in liberating themselves from conventional architecture language as one of their characteristics and analyzed it according to three elements. The first is their four-dimensional architectural element. SANAA adds chronological elements such as events and actions to their architectural structures. The second is their flexibility, the third is their permeable approach to reality in their “regressive architecture,” working as a reflector to reveal reality and having minimum intervention…like unnoticeable shadows.

All of the above elements are based upon SANAA’s reactions to contemporary society and environment, after being in contact through their “multichannel sensitivities.” Without idealization or criticism, they “slip” into reality and react to it without any prejudice or hierarchy of values. Koji Taki once made a comment on Sejima’s approach that, “one’s body slips into, without 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, Previous Opening Event, 2000 report , Office for 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, 2002, p. 12.

The Encounters in the 21st Century: Polyphony—Emerging Resonantes , Tankosha, 2004, pp. 28-30.

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any resistance, the abnormality of contemporary society.” SANAA has a unique way of relating to their creations: they simply want to place their architecture and observe what will happen rather than predicting and planning what effect it will have on the surrounding environment.

SANAA’s structures seem to be a volume of architecture that has emerged from a drawn scheme in order to transform various functional conditions/ programs into actual spatial forms. Their method consists of persistent studies, looking at life in reality as it is, and creating architecture based on their observations. Such process involves their unique process of “abstraction.” Instead of adjusting actual conditions to conventional architecture theories, they observe reality and immediately connect their observations to their handiworks, creating conrete charts and models. This is, however, intended or not, “creating diagrams with the intention of experimenting to realize the complexities in forms.” Working with visual materials, such as graphics and volume models, SANAA members were inspired to explore more studies. While it can be called a program-oriented architecture, the forms and designs become boldly abstract and decisions are made by leaps and bounds. It is rather close to a sculptor’s intuition, in which materials beg to have their forms chiselled out. Sejima says that she wants to eliminate the boundaries between software and hardware in architecture, or connect the two. The fusion happens in the working process. In the case of the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, they made more than one hundred disc-shaped study models. They consider the most detailed requests from curators, city officials, and other staff members to reflect upon the architectural designs, while making no compromises regarding the multiple corridors penetrating the structure or the appearance of sculptural forms of the building.

There were sudden changes, such as keeping several rooms at the same height and lowering ceilings.

They probably proceed with their project without being able to make a simulation of the final/complete space and its spatial experiences. They begin “playing the game” with unknown factors in the program. They cannot possible grasp the “whole” by completing the physical building. The architectural design reveals itself in time and is given its “wholeness” through the relationship with the people who use the building and the surrounding environment.

Kazuyo Sejima; Masashi Sogabe, Koji Taki, Yoshiharu Tsukamoto, and Ryue Nishizawa, Special Issue, Kazuyo Sejima and Associates 1987-1996, Kenchiku Bunka No. 591, Shokokusha Publishing Co. Ltd, Japan, 1996, p.50 Koji Taki, Kazuyo Sejima & Associates 1987-1996, Kenchiku Bunka 51 No. 51, Shokokusha Publishing Co. Ltd, Japan, 1996, p. 48

No Man’s Land/No Architecture Land --and flexibility The conventional concepts of architecture are now completely deconstructed. This was caused by the fact that the relationship between the physical individual body and its surrounding environment was largely transformed at the latter half of the twentieth century. There are more ambiguous areas that do not belong to either nature or the artificial world, without any original landscape or cultural identities. Our bodies are also constructed with conventional flesh and “informationalized” bodies floating in the sea of virtuality. There goes traffic beyond physical boundary lines.

SANAA explores different flexibilities from the physical flexibilities of Modernism, in which the framework stays the same and the inside of the framework can be freely changed. Their flexibility is produced through new situations caused by intangible elements, such as information. For instance, Sejima thinks of the radical possibilities to transform the frameworks of architecture, considering the elimination of architecture itself. She also accepts the situation where users add flexibilities to buildings built without any physical flexibility.

In SANAA’s architecture, the relationships between private and public spaces represent relationships of independent and open systems, as well as solitary and relational elements. There, both individual and communal aspects are emphasized. SANAA transforms conventional families, couples, and communities to equal relationships without hierarchies. They offer bold and interesting solutions in each project. The first proposal came through with Saishunkan Women’s Dormitory (1997), which was critiqued as a “jail” because of its shelter-like individual rooms and boldly-designed communal space. House in a Plum Grove in 2003, designed by Sejima alone, is a private house for a couple with two children and an elderly mother. The relationship between individual and communal spaces is designed with humor and unpredictability. Every room has windows that can be viewd from every other space, making the inside of the house one large space. It is designed so that the children’s rooms will be collected and absorbed back into the whole when they grow up and leave the house.

In the building for 21st Century Museum of Coontemporary Art, Kanazawa, you become unable to separate the physical space of the building you are in from the landscape surrounding the building. Elements such as the room you are in, the corridors, and the cars seen outside of the windows, form multiple layers of vision.

“The transparency (of the architecture) depends on the comprehension of the person experiencing it. On the other hand, it would be boring if one could understand it without experiencing it. It is like discovering how to re-

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late to the building through experiencing it. One receives suggestions from the buildings up to a certain point, but after that, one discovers the building oneself so that one can freely walk around it.”

SANAA’s buildings confuse people when they enter them for the first time.

The process we go through from the initial confusion and then to being forced to discover how to move in the building offers a “shelter/therapy” to us, whose imaginations have become poor through constant exposure to enormous amounts of one-way information. We are impoverished through the problem of “being bored,” with the insecurity of not being able to see the “story” we are part of.

Having ambiguous elements in the building, you can make your own understanding and find ways of using the building in the process of “getting used to” it. The architecture provides suggestions and instructions to a certain point, but then one is left alone to make decisions. The structure is, however, created with the precondition that one can always find one’s position in the whole. “Transparency” is a compass/Tool to help the user in the process of exploring flexibility. The transparency is a suggestion of relationship and the implication of solid boundaries.

Through boundaries of transparency, an enormous amount of information flows through. It is up to each individual to take in, imitate, or ignore.

The physical body cannot move over the boundary, however, the “informationalized” body already shares the space beyond the boundary. Varieties of actions, reactions, and observations assist the process of trial and error in using the architectural structure.

After being used by individuals, the architecture is now given the names of programs that were missing at the beginning. Each individual user guides a different program. Each program reveals a different flexibility.

New Language for constructing Relationships – curvature and Randomness Curvature and randomness—two features that have characterized the work of SANAA since their design for The 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa. At Kanazawa, SANAA sought to create spaces in which art viewers explore their relationship with their surroundings through transparent boundaries. The Glass Pavilion at the Toledo Museum of Art takes this endeavor a step further. Here, the program’s functions—museum galleries, glass-making studios, and a multi-purpose hall—were laid out appropriately, then wrapped in transparent, curving glass to become autonomous spaces. The building’s glass façade and the spaces separating the rooms function as buffer zones for noise reduction and temperature control.

GA Sejima Kazuyo + Nishizawa Ryue Dokuhon , A.D.A, EDITA, Tokyo, 2005, p. 280

Most impressive of all, however, is the contrast between the harsh movement of the hot shops, where high-temperature glass ovens are located, and the graceful stillness of the glass collection exhibition, which contains many antiques. These spaces are placed in confrontation by means of glass walls. Viewers, while appreciating the glass artworks, are simultaneously witness to the drama in which silica obtains form and color in the performance-like process of glassmaking. The activities of the spaces in the Glass Pavilion, one thinks, are conjoined in relationships that seem physiological in how one invigorates the other, like heart, lungs, brain, and other bodily organs. Then, the way exterior light and light from the courtyard interplay on the curved glass surfaces to produce a layered visual experience suggests that SANAA is moving toward increasingly sensitive manipulation of light and reflection. The fluidity obtained by using only curved glass with no right-angled corners is enough, in itself, to softly deconstruct the dignified aplomb of the monumental art museum building standing across the way.

SANAA’s early-period working method was to lay out the program in the building plan, then raise the spaces into form on this basis. More recently, however, one can sense in curves and random forms and apparently random orders the process by which they have moved away from a rigid prescription and gradually become freer. That they have is not due to caprice or playfulness but rather reflects their clear commitment to a guiding vision. They are driven by a desire to establish flexible relationships with the surrounding environment and site conditions and bring exterior and interior spaces into interaction, so as to form a relationship of mutual exchange between the building and its surroundings. The composition of the New Museum of Contemporary Art, for example—a stack of boxes of different sizes randomly shifted off axis—displays a simple lightness of bearing. The building is nevertheless informed throughout with subtle devices aimed at imparting variety to interior lighting and spatial character, in a limited urban setting.

SANAA’s design statement—“By stacking the boxes while shifting them and opening them up, we hope to produce an atmosphere of connectivity between art and the city”—is indicative of their moving toward greater fusion of interior and exterior.

The Louvre at Lens, a series of long, narrow volumes placed one connected to the next in a slightly curving arrangement, also took its departure from the concept of creating a building to respond with fluid intimacy to the shape of its site. The size of each volume reflects the dimension and arrangement of the surrounding cavaliers (remnants of railway tracks for old-time mining cars), and the volumes are placed so as to follow the calm slope of the site. The same concept motivates Onishi Hall, a project undertaken independently by Sejima. Here, the volumes of a multipurpose

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public facility have freely curving, irregular contours that wrap around the rectilinear forms required by the program, thus emphasizing the relationship of connectivity among the volumes and responding to the line of the encompassing site.

Zollverein School of Management and Design is the first building SANAA has completed in Europe. The program functions have been placed separately on four floors equal in area (35m2 on a side) but having varied ceiling heights (3.15m–9.8m). To maintain interior warmth, ground water is circulated through pipes passed through the walls. As such, windows of all sizes could be let in the thin façade walls (30cm thick), which required no insulation materials. When viewed after darkness, the randomly placed windows of various sizes, lit by interior light, gleam like stars in the night sky.

In its vertical stack of functions, the building resembles the New Museum, but here, it is windows that symbolize the relationship established between interior and exterior. Looking outward from the interior, the user appears to be encompassed by walls hung with richly colored paintings, due to the minimal design of the window frames. Moreover, each window view looks precisely like the purely perceptual, physical-sensation-inducing paintings of Gerhard Richter, who works from photographs. This effect of a window view coming to perform as a symbol, just as it is, can also be found in Sejima’s House in a Plum Grove, but here, there is a different intimacy.

Elements of the exterior scenery are converted to something like visual signs in a painting, and people inside the building, experiencing the total effect of these windows, become joined in a relationship with exterior scenery of refined metaphysical character. In the way they have let a square aperture into the roof of the uppermost floor, furthermore, SANAA has succeeded in bringing a slice of the sky into the interior, in a manner suggesting a James Turrell skyspace.

If it were only the design of the windows that set this building apart, we could point to other architectural examples. By simplifying all other design elements to an infinite degree, however, SANAA has taken the interplay between interior and exterior into a new dimension. It is, thus, in their ability to creatively “open things up” that their methods strike one as important.

SANAA constructs the basic elements of a design to suit the specific conditions of the project at hand. Of greatest interest in their work, however, is how, by applying curvature and randomness, they establish quietly provocative relationships of spontaneous character between interior and exterior, or else among interior spaces, in order to empower the user creatively as the building’s chief participant. Through radical practice of the aesthetics of “constructing relationships,” SANAA moves us to discover —and participate in— our surroundings.

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Kazuyo Sejima & Ryue Nishizawa at 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa

KAZUYO SEJIMA + RYUE NISHIZAWA / SANAA KAZUYO SEJIMA 1956 Born in Ibaraki Prefecture 1981 Graduated from Japan Women’s University with Masters Degree in Architecture

Joined Toyo Ito & Associates 1987 Established Kazuyo Sejima & Associates 1995 Established SANAA with Ryue Nishizawa 2001- Professor at Keio University RYUE NISHIZAWA 1966 Born in Kanagawa Prefecture 1990 Graduated from Yokohama National University with Masters Degree in Architecture

Joined Kazuyo Sejima & Associates 1995 Established SANAA with Kazuyo Sejima 1997 Established Office of Ryue Nishizawa 2001- Associate Professor at Yokohama National University Major Works 1996 Multimedia Workshop, Gifu, Japan

S-House, Okayama, Japan 1997 N-Museum, Wakayama, Japan

M-House, Tokyo, Japan

K-Building, Ibaraki, Japan 1998 Koga Park Café, Ibaraki, Japan 1999 O-Museum, Nagano, Japan 2000 Day Care Center, Kanagawa, Japan

La Biennale di Venezia, 7th International Architecture Exhibition “City of girls” Japanese Pavilion, Venice, Italy

PRADA Beauty Prototype 2001 PRADA Beauty LEEGARDEN Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China

Garden Cafe at the 7th International Istanbul Biennale, Istanbul, Turkey 2003 ISSEY MIYAKE by NAOKI TAKIZAWA, Tokyo, Japan

Christian Dior Building Omotesando, Tokyo, Japan 2004 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art Kanazawa, Kanazawa Japan 2006 Zollverein School of management and design, Essen, Germany

The Toledo Museum of Art Glass Pavilion, Toledo, Ohio, USA

Novartis Campus WSJ-158 Office Building, Basel, Switzerland

Current Projects Stadstheater Almere ‘De Kunstlinie’, Almere, the Netherlands Extension of the Institute Valencia d’Art Modern, Valencia, Spain New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, USA House for China International Practical Exhibition of Architecture, Nanjing, China Naoshima Ferrey Terminal, Kagawa, Japan Learning Center, EPFL (Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne), Switzerland Louvre Lens, France Derek Lam Shop, New York, USA

Exhibitions 1996 Kazuyo Sejima + Ryue Nishizawa 1987-1996 Architectural Association School of Architecture, London, UK

La Biennale di Venezia , 6th International Architecture Exhibition Emerging Voices Giardini di Castello, Venice, Italy 1997 5-D Space on the Run , The Swedish Museum of Architecture, Stockholm, Sweden 1998 Kazuyo Sejima + Ryue Nishizawa GA Gallery, Tokyo, Japan 1999 Fancy Dance, Japanese contemporary Art after 1990 , Art Sonje Museum, Kyongiu, Korea / Art Sonje Center, Seoul, Korea

The Un-Private House The Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA, Participation 2000 One Hundred Thousand , Nationaltheater Station, Oslo, Norway Recent work of Kazuyo Sejima + Ryue Nishizawa , Harvard University, Graduate School of Design, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA La Biennale di Venezia, 7th International Architecture Exhibition Less Aesthetics More Ethics , Arsenale, Venice, Italy

Kazuyo Sejima + Ryue Nishizawa Recent Projects Aedes Gallery, Berlin, Germany

Kazuyo Sejima + Ryue Nishizawa Recent Projects NAI, Rotterdam, the Netherlands 2001 Kazuyo Sejima + Ryue Nishizawa Recent Projects Ministerio de Fomento, Madrid, Spain

Roofgarden Las Palmas Witte de With, Rotterdam, The Netherlands 2002 Kazuyo Sejima + Ryue Nishizawa American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York, USA

La Biennale di Venezia, 8th International Architecture Exhibition

Installation for the exhibition Arne Jacobson - Absolutely Modern Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebaek, Denmark

Urban Creation Shanghai Biennale 2002, Shanghai Art Museum, Shanghai, China 2003 Kazuyo Sejima + Ryue Nishizawa / SANAA Recent Projects

Zumtobel Staff-Lichtforum, Vienna, Austria

Kazuyo Sejima + Ryue Nishizawa / SANAA Ampliacion del IVAM Institut Valencia d’Art Modern, Valencia, Spain

Kazuyo Sejima + Ryue Nishizawa / SANAA Architecture Design Zeche Zollverein, Essen,Germany

Kazuyo Sejima + Ryue Nishizawa / SANAA , Gallery - MA, Tokyo, Japan

Kazuyo Sejima + Ryue Nishizawa / SANAA , N-museum, Wakayama, Japan

Kazuyo Sejima + Ryue Nishizawa / SANAA New Museum of Contemporary Art, NY, USA 2005 Kazuyo Sejima + Ryue Nishizawa / SANAA , Kanazawa, Japan

Kazuyo Sejima + Ryue Nishizawa / SANAA , Basilica Palladiana de Vicenza, Italy 2006 Kazuyo Sejima + Ryue Nishizawa / SANAA , HTW Chur, Switzerland

Kazuyo Sejima + Ryue Nishizawa / SANAA , Bauhaus Archiv, Germany 2007 Kazuyo Sejima + Ryue Nishizawa / SANAA , MUSAC. Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León, Spain

Kazuyo Sejima + Ryue Nishizawa / SANAA & Walter Niedermayr, deSingel, Belgium

Awards 1998 The Prize of Architectural Institute of Japan, Tokyo, Japan 2000 Erich Schelling Architekturpreis, Kalsruhe, Germany 2002 Arnold W. Brunner Memorial Prize in Architecture, American Academy of Arts & Letters, N.Y, USA

Architecture Award of Salzburg Vincenzo Scamozzi, Salzburg, Austria 2004 Golden Lion for the most remarkable work in the exhibition Metamorph in the 9th International Architecture

Exhibition, la Biennale di Venezia 2005 46th Mainichi Newspaper Arts Award (Architecture Category)

The Rolf Schock Prize in category of visual arts, Sweden 2006 Prize of Architectural institute of Japan, Tokyo, Japan

Building Construction Society prize, Tokyo, Japan

Select Publications 1996 Special issue, Kazuyo Sejima & Associates 1987–1996 , Kenchiku Bunka vol. 51 No.591, Shokokusha Publishing Co. Ltd, Japan

Monograph, Kazuyo Sejima 1988-1996 EL CROQUIS, No.77 (I) , Spain 1998 Special issue, Kazuyo Sejima 1987–1999 / Kazuyo Sejima + Ryue Nishizawa 1995–1999, JA vol. 35,

SHINKENCHIKU-SHA Co. Ltd, Japan 2000 Monograph, Kazuyo Sejima + Ryue Nishizawa 1995–2000 , EL CROQUIS, No.99, Spain 2003 Monograph, KAZUYO SEJIMA + RYUE NISHIZAWA / SANAA WORKS 1995–2003 TOTO Shuppan, Japan 2004 Kazuyo Sejima + Ryue Nishizawa 2000/2004 EL CROQUIS, No.121/122, Spain 2005 GA Sejima Kazuyo + Nishizawa Ryue Dokuhon , A.D.A, EDITA, Japan

GA ARCHITECT 18 Kazuyo Sejima, Ryue Nishizawa /1987–2006 .

A.D.A, EDITA, Japan

Kazuyo Sejima + Ryue Nishizawa / SANAA , Yuko Hasegawa, Electa, Italy 2007 Kazuyo Sejima + Ryue Nishizawa / SANAA & Walter Niedermayr Hatje Cantz, Germany

Kazuyo Sejima & Associates Works and Projects 1998 PLATFORM I, Chiba, Japan 1990 PLATFORM II, Yamanashi, Japan 1991 Saishunkan Seiyaku Women’s Dormitory, Kumamoto, Japan 1993 Pachinko Parlor I, II, Ibaraki, Japan 1994 Villa in the Forest, Nagano, Japan

Y-HOUSE, Chiba, Japan

Police Box, Tokyo, Japan 1996 Pachinko Parlor I II, Ibaraki, Japan 1998 U-Building, Branch Office, Ibaraki, Japan 2000 Gifu Kitagata Apartment, Gifu, Japan

Small House, Tokyo, Japan

Kozankaku High School Club House, Ibaraki, Japan

hhstyle.com, Tokyo, Japan

Koga Park Café, Ibaraki, Japan 2002 Asahi Shimbun Yamagata Branch Office, Yamagata, Japan 2003 House in a Plum Grove, Tokyo, Japan 2005 Onishi Hall, Gunma, Japan 2006 Dentist Office, Tsuyama, Japan

Office of Ryue Nishizawa Works and Projects 1998 Weekendhouse, Gunma, Japan 2000 TAKEO Mihonchou Honten, Tokyo, Japan 2000 Ichikawa Apartment, Chiba, Japan 2001 House in Kamakura, Kanagawa, Japan 2003 Space design for “LOVE PLANET” exhibition, Kagawa, Japan 2004 Funabashi Apartment, Chiba, Japan

Benesse art site Naoshima office, Kagawa, Japan 2005 Moriyama House, Tokyo, Japan 2006 House A, Tokyo Japan

Agustín Pérez Rubio (Valencia, Spain 1972) Art Historian, art critic and exhibition curator, he is Chief Curator of MUSAC, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León. He was director of the Jornadas de Estudios de la Imagen de la Comunidad de Madrid from 2001-2004. Regular contributor in internationam magazines Duch as NU: The Nordic Art Review (Sweden); Art Journal (Philadelphia), Kalias (Spain), Tema Celeste (Milán), Arts Mediterranea (Milán, Barcelona, Paríi), Atlantica, (Spain), Le Journal des Arts (Paris), among others. He was curator of important shows such as Trasvases: artistas españoles en vídeo (Buenos Aires, Mexico D.F., Lima, 2000); Antro-apologías (Valencia, 2001), Michael Elmgreen & Ingar Dragset (Madrid, 2002); as well as BAD BOYS , the official Spanish off-biennale exhibition within the 50th Venice Biennale; Cruising Danubio (Madrid, 2003), and Tobias Rehberger. “I die everyday. Cor I 15,31”, (Madrid, 2005). His work as Curator at MUSAC has brought him to co-curate group shows such as Fusion. Aspects of Asian Culture in the MUSAC Collection together with Kristine Guzmán, or Globos Sonda / Trial Balloons , together with Octavio Zaya and Yuko Hasegawa; aside from curating and editing extensive individual shows of artists such as Dora Garcia, Julie Mehretu, Muntean & Rosemblum, Pierre Huyghe – together with Marta Gerveno-, or the team of Japanese architects SANAA. He was also co-curator together with Octavio Zaya of the Project Rooms of ARCO ’06 entitled Curva de Persecución / Pursuit Curve , not to mention his project Present-Future together with Katerina Gregos for Artissima -Torino´06.

Kristine Guzmán (Manila, Philippines, 1974), is an architect with a Master’s degree in Architectural Restoration from the Madrid’s Universidad Politécnica of and is currently General Coordinator at MUSAC (Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León). She has worked on the coordination of cultural and exhibition projects at Espacio UNO (MNCARS, Madrid) and in the Jornadas de Estudio de la Imagen de la Comunidad de Madrid , as well as on editing and translating for various publications, in collaboration with both national and international institutions. She coordinated the exhibitions, Ofelias y Ulises. En torno al Arte Español Contemporáneo (at the 49th Biennale in Venice) and Apricots along the Street by Pipilotti Rist . Likewise she was co-curator, together with Agustín Pérez Rubio, of the exhibition Fusion: Aspects of Asian Culture in the MUSAC Collection and was assistant curator of the exhibition Kazuyo Sejima + Ryue Nishizawa/SANAA.

Luis Fernández-Galiano (1950) is an architect and professor at the School of Architecture of Madrid’s Universidad Politécnica. Editor of the journals AV/ Arquitectura Viva, he writes on architecture for Spain’s leading newspaper, El País. A member of the Royal Academy of Doctors, he has been Cullinan Professor at Rice University, a visiting scholar at the Getty Center of Los Angeles and a visiting critic at Princeton, Harvard and the Berlage Institute; and has taught courses at the Menéndez Pelayo and Complutense universities. President of the jury in the 9th Venice Architecture Biennial and in the XV Chile Architecture Biennial, expert and juror of the Mies van der Rohe European Award, he has curated the exhibitions El espacio privado in Madrid and Extreme Eurasia in Tokyo, and has been on the jury of several international competitions. Among his books are La Quimera Moderna , Fire and Memory (MIT Press) and Spain Builds, the latter in collaboration with New York’s Museum of Modern Art.

JUNTA DE CASTILLA Y LEÓN CULTURE & TOURISM COUNCIL

Yuko Hasegawa is a Chief Curator of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo (MOT). Her most recent project is Marlene Dumas-Broken White at MOT (2007). She has co-curated media_city seoul 2006 at the Seoul Museum of Art (2006) and Sensorium at the MIT List Visual Arts Center (2006 - 2007).

Other curated exhibitions include The Encounter in the 21st Century: Polyphony - Emerging Resonances , the inaugural exhibition of the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa (2004) and Matthew Barney - Drawing Restraint (2005) in the same museum. She was appointed as Artistic Director of the 7th International Istanbul Biennial (2001) and as Co-Curator of the 4th Shanghai Biennale (2002). She is also the board member of CIMAM and Professor of the Department of Art Science, Tama Art University in Tokyo.

General Director D. Jesús Mª Gómez Sanz

Councilor Dña. Silvia Clemente Municio Secretary General D. José Rodríguez Sanz-Pastor Director General of Cultural Promotions and Institutions D. Alberto Gutiérrez Alberca

FUNDACIÓN SIGLO PARA LAS ARTES DE CASTILLA Y LEÓN

Visual Arts Director D. Rafael Doctor Roncero

MUSAC Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León Director Rafael Doctor Roncero Chief Curator Agustín Pérez Rubio General Coordinator Kristine Guzmán Administration Management Andrés de la Viuda Delgado Comunication and Press Izaskun Sebastián Marquínez Education and Cultural Action Belén Sola Exhibition and Projects Coordination Marta Gerveno Carlos Ordás Tania Pardo Library and Documentation Center Araceli Corbo Register Koré Escobar ACQUISITIONS COMMITTEE D. Jesús M. Gómez Sanz D. Rafael Doctor Roncero D. Agustín Pérez Rubio Dña. Estrella de Diego D. José Guirao Cabrera D. Javier Hernando Dña. Mª Jesús Miján D. Octavio Zaya

This book is published in conjunction with the exhibition Kazuyo Sejima + Ryue Nishizawa / SANAA organized by MUSAC, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León, Spain. January 20—May 1, 2007. The 1:2 scale mock-up model of the Flower House (photos on page 3 and 196) was constructed especially for this exhibition.

EXHIBITION

PUBLICATION

Curator Agustín Pérez Rubio

Publisher ACTAR MUSAC

Assistant Curator Kristine Guzmán SANAA Exhibition Design Kazuyo Sejima Ryue Nishizawa Sam Chermayeff Register Koré Escobar Installation Artefacto, S.L. Emacryl S.A. Mariano Javier Román Martínez Roberto Gómez Blanco Lighting Lledó Iluminación Shipping Schenker Deutschland AG Insurance Aon Gil y Carvajal Photo Credit Ramon Prat, SANAA We apologize if, due to reasons wholly beyond our control, some of the photo sources have not been listed.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior permission in writing of copyright holders and of the publisher.

With the support of

Editor Sam Chermayeff Agustin Pérez Rubio Tomoko Sakamoto Editorial Coordination Angela Pang Etsuko Yoshii Kristine Guzmán Design Actar Pro Essays Luis Fernandez-Galiano Kristine Guzmán Yuko Hasegawa Agustín Pérez Rubio Translations Aitor Araúz Sonia Berjer Photography Ramon Prat, Takashi Homma, SANAA, Kazuyo Sejima & Associates and Office of Ryue Nishizawa Digital Production Oriol Rigat, Carmen Galán Printing Ingoprint S.A. © SANAA, Kazuyo Sejima & Associates and Office of Ryue Nishizawa for their works © The authors, for their texts and translations © 2007, ACTAR & MUSAC, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León, for the edition All rights reserved.

ISBN (ACTAR) 978-84-96540-70-5 (Trade Edition) ISBN (MUSAC) 978-84-935356-4-3 (Museum Edition, available only in museum) DL B-16014-07 Printed and bound in Spain

This exhibition has been sponsored by the Program Antoni de Montserrat 2007, summoned yearly by Casa Asia.

ACTAR Roca i Batlle 2-4 E-08023 Barcelona Tel. +34 93 418 77 59 Fax +34 93 418 67 07 info@actar.com www.actar.com ACTAR (US Office) 158 Lafayette Street, 5th Floor New York, NY 10013 Tel. +1 212 966 2207 Fax. +1 212 966 2214 michael@actar.com MUSAC, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León Avenida de los Reyes Leoneses 24 E-24008 León Tel. +34 98 709 00 00 Fax. +34 98 709 11 11 musac@musac.org.es www.musac.org.es Distribution Actar D Roca i Batlle 2-4 08023 Barcelona Tel. +34 93 417 49 93 Fax +34 93 418 67 07 office@actar-d.com www.actar-d.com Acknowledgements Kazuyo Sejima, Ryue Nishizawa and Agustín Pérez Rubio would like to acknowledge the trust, assistance, support and dedication of the following people, without whom this book and exhibition would not have been possible.

Candice Breitz Francisco Javier Casado Pacios Cristina Díaz Moreno Rafael Doctor Roncero Luis Fernández Galiano Efrén García Grinda Menene Gras Yuko Hasegawa Yoshiko Isshiki Yasuo Moriyama Miyako Maekita Ramon Prat Jesús Salamanca David Villanueva Emilio Villanueva Octavio Zaya