Renewing Pritzker's Reputation

Ryue Nishizawa and Kazuyo Sejima
New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, 2007
21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, Japan, 2004

Instituted in 1978, the Pritzker Prize set out to be the Nobel of architecture awards. The Pritzker family, owners of the Hyatt Hotel chain, sought to establish this annual award by honoring individual careers. For decades the prize has been slightly controversial because it applies competitive standards to creative efforts.

The 1991 award caused an uproar when the award went to Robert Venturi but not his wife and partner, Denise Scott Brown. The Pritzker jury at the time stated that the prize was given to individual practitioners, not firms. Even more upsetting for followers of Scott Brown, was in 2004, when the award went to the first woman, Zaha Hadid - an award many felt rightly belonged to Scott Brown.

But this year marks a departure from past winners in that the Pritzker was awarded to the duo of the Tokyo-based firm SANAA (Sejima and Nishizawa and Associates). They are an unusual combination of a female-male pairing being that they are not married to one another. Interesting enough, female Kazuyo Sejima is the senior partner.

With this aside Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa have developed a type of innovative architecture that stands out for its ability to be extremely expressive within the confines of minimalism. Yet most importantly they have been able to apply their efficiency learned in Tokyo to the United States with their design of the New Museum which fit into the tiny mid block site and cost a mere fifty million, contrasting most big-city museums that easily run over $200 million.

Not only are their buildings fit for the high taste of Manhattan, but SANAA has also been able to adapt their architecture for people who aren't avid museum goers. Their Kanazawa museum is a low-rise circular building that is intended to attract townspeople with less experience of museums. The round building was designed to be inviting and accessible.

This type of land economy and financial efficiency marks SANAA as the firm of the future, as well as their ability to adapt to various clientele.