SANAA
The firm's name spells out its origins. SANAA stands for Sejima and Nishizawa and Associates. It is an architectural firm based in Tokyo, Japan. Two people built it: Kazuyo Sejima, born in 1956, and Ryue Nishizawa, born in 1966.
They founded the practice together in 1995. A listener might wonder how a single Tokyo studio ended up signing buildings on four continents, from a glass pavilion in Ohio to a learning center in Switzerland. The answer runs through prizes, a string of museums, and a partnership that put inclusivity at its center.
In 2010, Sejima and Nishizawa were awarded the Pritzker Prize, described as the highest of honours in architecture. That award carried a second distinction. Winning it made Sejima the second woman ever to receive the Pritzker Prize.
The recognition did not begin or end there. In 2004, the pair won the Golden Lion for the most significant work in the Ninth International Architecture Exhibition of the Venice Biennale. That same Golden Lion honored their work in the exhibition titled Metamorph.
More awards followed in quick succession. In 2005, they received the 46th Mainichi Shinbun Arts Award in the architecture category. The same year brought them the Schock Prize in the visual arts. Two decades after the Pritzker, the honors continued: in 2025, the Royal Institute of British Architects granted them its Royal Gold Medal, citing "their long-term commitment to projects that prioritise inclusivity and accessibility".
The 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art in Kanazawa, Ishikawa, occupied SANAA from 1999 to 2004. It sits among a run of museum commissions that stretch far beyond Japan. The studio's reach in this single building type spans Asia, Europe, and North America.
The Glass Pavilion at the Toledo Museum of Art, in Toledo, Ohio, ran from 2001 to 2006. In New York City, the New Museum of Contemporary Art took the firm from 2003 to 2007. France brought the Louvre-Lens, in Lens, in the Pas-de-Calais, built between 2005 and 2012.
Early Japanese work set the pattern. The N Museum in Wakayama spanned 1995 to 1997, and the O Museum in Nagano ran from 1995 to 1999. A later museum, the Art Gallery of New South Wales North Building, was completed in 2022, the same year as the Taichung Green Museumbrary in Taiwan.
The Rolex Learning Center anchored SANAA at the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, in Switzerland. The project ran from 2004 to 2010. It is one of several campus and education buildings the firm has signed across continents.
Milan gained the Bocconi New Campus in 2019. In 2023, Jerusalem received the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Campus of the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design. Germany's Zollverein School of Design, in Essen, was built between 2003 and 2006.
Houses and smaller dwellings trace the studio's earliest years. The S House in Okayama ran from 1995 to 1996, and the M House in Tokyo from 1996 to 1997. In China, the House for the China International Practical Exhibition of Architecture, in Nanjing, began in 2004 and is listed as ongoing.
The Dior Omotesando Store in Tokyo, built from 2001 to 2003, shows SANAA at work for luxury retail. The firm has repeatedly designed for fashion houses and brands. The Prada Beauty Store in Arezzo, Italy, dates to 2000.
Grace Farms, in New Canaan, Connecticut, completed in 2015, counts among the studio's notable public works in the United States. The Serpentine Gallery Pavilion in London followed the firm's pattern of temporary and civic structures; it dates to 2009.
Not every commission was built. The Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart, Germany, remained a project only, dated 2002. So did the New Campus Center of the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, a 1998 proposal. A later realized transit work, the Naoshima Ferry Terminal in Kagawa, Japan, ran from 2003 to 2006.