IIT College of Architecture welcomes Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa, acclaimed Japanese architects and co-founders of SANAA, for a lecture at S. R. Crown Hall at 5 p.m. on August 25.
Sejima is a trailblazer for women in architecture. She was awarded the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 2010—the second woman to win the award—alongside Ryue Nishizawa. The Pritzker Prize is among the highest honors in architecture, and the organization praised the duo’s projects in Japan, the United States, and Europe.
Sejima, a 1979 graduate of Japan Women’s University, established her first practice in 1987, and co-founded SANAA in 1995. She has taught at Princeton University, the Polytechnique de Lausanne in Switzerland, and Tokyo’s Tama Art University and Keio University.
SANAA’s U.S. projects, known for being fluid, transparent, and intertwined with nature, include the Glass Pavilion for the Toledo Museum of Art in Ohio and the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York City. Sejima was awarded the 2023 Jane Drew Prize, named after the female pioneering modernist and presented by the W Programme.