Kazuyo Sejima + Ryue Nishizawa / S A N A A

Established 1995Tokyo, JapanInternational, broad range of projects (landscaping, planning, interiors, exhibitions, furniture and product design)Typically use Sasaki and Partners as structural engineers2010 Pritzker Architecture Prize LaureatesBuildings: Louvre Museum , Toledo Museum of Art’s Glass Pavilion, New Museum of Contemporary Art, the extension of the Institut Valencià d’Art Modern, the N-Museum, the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Onishi Civic Center.

Kazuyo Sijima b. 1956 Ibaraki Prefecture, JapanArchitecture at Japan Women’s University Studied under Toyo ItoOwn practice in 1987Japan Institute of Architects’ Young Architect of the Year in Japan 1992Visiting Professor at Tama Art University and Keio University in Tokyo

Ryue Nishizawab. 1966 Kanagawa Prefecture, JapanArchitecture at Yokohama National University Independent practice since 1997Professorship at Yokohama National University and Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de LausanneJean Labatut Professorship at School of Architecture at Princeton University

Critics have stated that SANAA’s designs are formed from simplicity, formal austerity, and geometric purity. They tend to be minimalist in the sense that they are not striving to create ideal forms, but make the concept or the organization of spaces explicit. They aspire to immateriality and often create a virtual of hyper-real sensation. SANAA is very interested in creating a landscape and atmosphere for people to utilize. Thus, many of their designs focus on resisting the location of a primary façade or a single entrance and a sense of weightlessness and transparency from minimal structure.

SANAA’s design process in adjusted for each project, but they thend to design from the inside out in over to express the interior on the exterior. Their designs are also very program driven. They minimize structure, to maximize glass, transparency, and movement. In order to study this, they typically use models, but also make sketches, drawings, and plans in order to understand various modes of representation and design from a different method. They also tend to design from two different views, one from a site, and at a certain distance, and one from a programmatic direction. Program, volume, and structure are very important to their work.

Design Concepts + Process

The Kanazawa museum for 21st-century art is a low, circular structure located in a small, central park in Japan. The circular structure allows accessible from all sides, and the glass envelope allows transparency into the more public programmatic elements to attract visitors. SANAA wanted to balance both the public (free to access) and private (payment needed) areas of the building and blur the boundary between them. The circular form is filled with rectilinear forms to fit the programmatic needs and the circulation then becomes all the space in between. Visitors are able to wander freely through the museum in which the galleries are illuminated with different gradients of light. The non-traditional museum flow allows visitors to appropriate space and define their own interactions with the art.

Too realize this, the structure is based on much of the load-bearing, steel system in being in the walls, including the steel beam sheer walls. There are load-bearing elements in the foyer, but they are reduced to the 127 panes of glass on the envelope and five inch diameter, round steel columns. This minimal structure and palette of white and glass allows for free movement and visual connections through the layers of glass. The minimalism is apparent in the structural detail: the minimal joining detail, the installation of mechanical in the floor and partitions, and the smooth, shiny surfaces.

21st CENTURY MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORY ART, KANAZAWAKanazawa, JapanSasaki Structural Consultants, Tokyo

F I V E E N V E L O P E D E S I G N C O N D I T I O N S :1. Wa l l meets ground

2. Wa l l meets sky

The glass of the wall meets the ground through a very small stainless-steel section that allows the glass wall to look as through it is going straight into the ground. This is important for SANAA’s design concept to integrate into the surrounding park and maximize visual interest for visitors passing by.

The glass of the wall meets the sky through a very small stainless –steel section. The glass is placed in front of the ceiling structure and allows the building to look as though it is cloaked in glass and the glass appears to be weightless.

3. Wa l l tu rns a corner

4. Open ing in wa l l

The corners are made up of a very minimal joint between two thin panes of glass. The corners are then able to almost disappear and allow the only readable corners to be those on the opaque gallery walls.

The opening is made with minimal stainless-steel structure and a minimal awning to denote an exterior opening.

5. Wa l l meets f loor

Kristin, F. (2006). The zollerein school of management and design, essen, germany. NY: Prestel.

Sanaa 2004-2008. (2007). El Croquis, 139, Madrid, Spain. Museum in Kanazawa.(2005 Apr.). Detail, 45(4), 344-350

The glass walls penetrate the floor enough to hide the section holding the glass into place. This allows the glass wall from the inside to appear as though it is just floating without any support. This assists SANAA in achieving maximum relationships between the city and the building.

CITATIONS