PRESS RELEASE
SANAA: KAZUYO SEJIMA + RYUE NISHIZAWA
+ WORKS BY WALTER NIEDERMAYR
The summer exhibition at the Danish Architecture Centre features the world-renowned and
Pritzker Architecture Prize awarded Japanese architects Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa,
and their design studio SANAA, accompanied by photographic works by the artist Walter Niedermayr.
The exhibition runs from 19 June - 1 October 2010.
The design universe of the Japanese design studio, SANAA – poetic and full of surprises – creates extraordinary spatial experiences. It has made Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa front runners on the international architectural scene. SANAA is major league architecture and its buildings are to be found all
over the world.
The exhibition at the Danish Architecture Centre gives a poetic and aesthetic insight to SANAA’s architectural universe of constantly expanding and exploring forms, subtle interplay of light and materials and
relational tensions between physical space and man.
Works by Walter Niedermayr
The exhibition is accompanied by works by world famous photographer Walter Niedermayr, who has an
ongoing artistic dialogue with SANAA. With their astonishing lightness, whiteness and focus on the selective interpretation, Niedermayr's works produce new perspectives on SANAA's buildings. The exhibition
features brand new works of the Rolex Learning Center.
Rolex Learning Center
SANAA’s most recent building in Europe is the branch new and highly praised 'Rolex Learning Center' in
Lausanne, Switzerland, an extension to the Technical Faculty, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne.
The exhibition will present the new 'Rolex Learning Center' to the public, while offering insights into other
prominent projects from SANAA and the poetic architectural idiom that is their trademark.
"SANAA is unquestionably one of the shining stars in the international architectural firmament, so we are
really proud to be able to introduce them to the Danish public here at DAC. I am convinced that the
Rolex Learning Center will set new standards for architecture in the coming decade. This building, which
is a public institution of learning, presents a completely new and fluid concept of space, creating new
frameworks for living, learning and community. It will become an international icon”, comments CEO
Kent Martinussen, Danish Architecture Centre.
Sejima Director at the International Architecture Exhibition in Venice
Over and above this increasing international focus on SANAA’s buildings, Kazuyo Sejima has been selected for the prestigious task of Director of the 12th International Architecture Exhibition in Venice – the first
woman ever chosen for this task. DAC is commissary of the Danish pavilion at this event. The International Architecture Exhibition in Venice is a major global event for architects and constructors and the
exhibition is therefore a unique opportunity for the Danish public to get an inside view of Kazuyo
Sejima's work and mindset before the Biennale.
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Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa about their cooperation with DAC:
“2010 is looking to be an extraordinary year for us with the completion of the Rolex Learning Center and
the International Architecture Biennale in Venice. In between these two events we are looking forward to
opening the exhibition at DAC and we are excited about working with the combination of the old, beautiful warehouse of DAC and the contemporary expression of architecture we are investigating at SANAA”.
Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa work independently as architects, but run the SANAA design studio
together, and together they have won several awards, recently the prestigious Pritzker Architecture Prize
and earlier the 'Golden Lion' at the Venice Biennale of Architecture in 2004. SANAA's projects include:
The New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York (2007) and the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary
Art, Kanazawa, Japan (2004), and boutiques for Christian Dior and Prada. Sejima designed the 'House in
a Plum Grove', Tokyo (2003), one of the most interesting attempts to re-think the organization and sequence of rooms in a house.
The exhibition is developed by SANAA in collaboration with Danish Architecture Centre. The exhibition is
part of DAC’s ongoing series; World Architecture.
The exhibition is supported by Realdania
SANAA: KAZUYO SEJIMA + RYUE NISHIZAWA
+ WORKS BY WALTER NIEDERMAYR
19 June - 1 October 2010.
Danish Architecture Centre, Strandgade 27 B, 1401 Copenhagen K
Open every day 10-17, Wednesday until 21
Free guided tour in the exhibition on Sundays at 2pm
www.dac.dk
For further information contact PR manager Line Juul Greisen +45 22 13 24 70
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