SANAA has been revealed because the winner of the RIBA Royal Gold Medal 2025. The collaborative follow of Japanese architects Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa has been main in its discipline with its ethereal, user-centric designs, which may be discovered of their native nation and throughout the globe. The accolade, certainly one of structure’s highest honours internationally, is introduced on behalf of His Majesty the King and has been supplied to SANAA for his or her ‘work to reshape the worldwide design panorama, creating areas that convey simplicity, gentle and magnificence to the fore,’ the RIBA explains in a press release.
Ryue Nishizawa and Kazuyo Sejima
(Picture credit score: SANAA)
RIBA Royal Gold Medal 2025 winner: SANAA
The studio has been honoured with the RIBA Royal Gold Medal 2025 for its knowledgeable place-making and dedication to crafting structure that conjures up connection and collaboration. The studio responded to the announcement, saying: ‘We’re delighted and really honoured to obtain the Royal Gold Medal. We have now at all times believed that structure can remodel and restore environments, serving to us to narrate to our environment, nature and one another.
‘All through our careers, now we have tried to make areas that convey folks collectively, inviting them to think about new methods of residing and studying collectively. Structure is at all times teamwork, and we are very grateful to everybody that has given us alternatives to develop these concepts over time, and to all these those that have labored tirelessly with us to grasp them. It is a very completely satisfied second for us, thanks.’
Twenty first Century Museum of Artwork, Japan
(Picture credit score: SANAA)
Beginning their joint follow in 1995, only a yr earlier than Wallpaper’s personal launch in 1996, the studio was honoured in our Twentieth-anniversary difficulty in 2016. A model of the article celebrating the work of its founders, initially revealed in our October 2016 version and that includes an interview with Sejima, follows under. It highlights the studio’s necessary contribution to the worldwide structure discipline.
(Picture credit score: SANAA)
SANAA: an appreciation
By the early Nineteen Nineties, Kazuyo Sejima already had expertise at Toyo Ito’s workplace, her personal studio and a Younger Architect of the 12 months award from the Japan Institute of Architects below her belt. However it was after establishing SANAA with Ryue Nishizawa in 1995 that her profession actually took off, upscaling to main cultural commissions which remodeled the duo into a global go-to alternative for mesmerizingly barely-there, ethereal structure.
New Kagawa Sports activities Enviornment, Japan
(Picture credit score: SANAA)
Their signature fashion of sturdy shapes and clear traces that on the similar time seem flowing and delicate has helped outline Twenty first-century Japanese structure. It’s all in regards to the expertise for SANAA, though priorities have shifted considerably for the reason that early days of the follow.
Rolex Studying Heart, Switzerland
(Picture credit score: Alain Herzog)
‘Our designs will not be pushed by what you are able to do with structure itself, however by an curiosity in the way in which folks expertise house as a relationship between programme, metropolis and surrounding panorama,’ Sejima says. ‘Previously, I might attempt to perceive the general character of a constructing’s surroundings and use this summary thought to develop a design. Right now, I attempt to create areas which might be extra exactly tailored to the variable character of a neighbourhood.’
New Museum, New York, USA
(Picture credit score: Dean Kaufman)
The follow has produced gems such because the Twenty first Century Museum of Up to date Artwork in Kanazawa, the Rolex Studying Heart, the Louvre-Lens and Grace Farms. The SANAA-designed New Museum in New York (2007) and the Zollverein College in Germany (2006) added to their worldwide portfolio.
Samaritaine, Paris, France
(Picture credit score: SANAA)
From there, commissions and honours poured in; from SANAA’s Serpentine Pavilion in London in 2009 and Sejima’s appointment to direct the 2010 Venice Structure Biennale to their joint Pritzker Prize win in the identical yr, and participation within the Rolex Mentor scheme in 2012.
Bocconi College, Italy
(Picture credit score: SANAA)
The latter additionally flagged up their curiosity in nurturing younger expertise; Sejima has been concerned in educating for the reason that early 2000s. ‘Younger folks provide you with new concepts always – and this will, after all, be thrilling,’ she says. ‘However I’ve just lately realised there are issues we will think about solely as we get older, making these relationships very efficient throughout a design course of.’
(Picture credit score: Iwan Baan)
Now approaching 70 and 60 respectively, Sejima and Nishizawa present no signal of slowing down. Newer tasks embody La Samaritaine division retailer in Paris; the Hitachi Metropolis Corridor in Sejima’s dwelling prefecture of Ibaraki; and the Inujima Artwork Home Venture, geared toward encouraging folks to choose the small island within the Seto Inland Sea. Their New Kagawa Sports activities Enviornment in Japan is predicted to open later in 2025.
(Picture credit score: Iwan Baan)
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Supply: Wallpaper
