Notable initiatives by 2025 Royal Gold Medal-winner SANAA
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Following the Royal Institute of British Architects‘ announcement that Japanese studio SANAA has gained the 2025 Royal Gold Medal, we highlight 10 of the studio’s most attention-grabbing initiatives.
SANAA, the studio led by architects Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa, was named the winner of this yr’s prestigious award for its in depth portfolio of labor, which was praised by RIBA president Muyiwa Oki for balancing “performance with profound magnificence”.
Since its institution in 1995, the Tokyo-based studio has change into well-known for its cultural buildings around the globe, typically accomplished with white and clear surfaces.
Amongst its key initiatives are the New Museum of Modern Artwork in New York, which consists of a low-lying round construction wrapped with glass, and the stepped Sydney Fashionable gallery in Australia.
The award is the most recent addition to SANAA’s assortment of prestigious accolades, which additionally consists of the 2010 Pritzker Structure Prize, the 2022 Praemium Imperiale for structure and the 2025 Le Prix Charlotte Perriand.
“We have now all the time believed that structure can remodel and restore environments, serving to us to narrate to our environment, nature and one another,” stated SANAA.
“All through our careers we’ve tried to make areas that carry individuals collectively, inviting them to think about new methods of dwelling and studying collectively.”
Learn on for 10 notable initiatives by the studio:
twenty first Century Museum of Modern Artwork, Japan, 2004
Accomplished in 2004, the twenty first Century Museum of Modern Artwork in Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan, consists of a low-lying round construction wrapped with glass.
Alongside its central artwork galleries, it hosts public areas together with a library, lecture corridor and youngsters’s workshop.
New Museum of Modern Artwork, US, 2007
Composed of a set of stacked blocks, the eight-storey New Museum of Modern Artwork was accomplished in 2007 by SANAA alongside Gensler on a compact website in downtown Manhattan.
Its shifting white volumes, that are wrapped in a layer of aluminium mesh, are designed to make sure every gallery receives pure daylight. Terraces run across the constructing’s east and south facades.
“The New Museum is a mixture of stylish and concrete,” SANAA stated. “We have been decided to make a constructing that felt like that.”
Discover out extra about New Museum of Modern Artwork ›
Serpentine Gallery Pavilion, UK, 2009
Sejima and Nishizawa used aluminium to assemble the Serpentine Gallery Pavilion in 2009, which featured a reflective cover meant to “soften into the environment”.
Raised by a community of skinny columns, the sinuous cover flowed throughout the positioning to create a sheltered area for guests that wrapped across the neighbouring bushes.
“The pavilion is floating aluminium, drifting freely between the bushes like smoke,” the duo stated. “It’s a sheltered extension of the park the place individuals can learn, loosen up and luxuriate in pretty summer time days.”
Discover out extra in regards to the 2009 Serpentine Gallery Pavilion ›
Rolex Studying Middle, Switzerland, 2010
The Rolex Studying Middle, a college constructing for the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, was accomplished by the studio in 2010 in Switzerland.
Open to each college students and the general public, the 20,000-square-metre centre homes social and examine areas, libraries, cafes and eating places sheltered beneath an undulating roof.
Discover out extra about Rolex Studying Middle ›
An outpost of the Musée du Louvre, the Louvre-Lens was accomplished by SANAA alongside New York-based studio Imrey Culbert in northern France after the studios gained a contest to design it in 2006.
Accomplished in 2012, the 360-metre-long constructing includes a collection of rectangular volumes that transition from glazed to brushed aluminium exteriors and have delicate curves.
“The undertaking avoids the strict, rectilinear shapes that may have conflicted with the delicate character of the positioning, in addition to of free shapes that may have been overly restrictive from the angle of the museum’s inside operations,” Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa stated.
Discover out extra about Louvre-Lens ›
This sinuous construction constructed from glass, concrete, metal and wooden encloses a neighborhood centre with a library, auditorium, eating area and fitness center, for Grace Farms – a 32-hectare nature reserve in New Canaan, Connecticut.
Named The River, the construction’s natural type was designed by Sejima and Nishizawa to suit into its pure environment, with its slender roof supported by skinny, usually spaced columns.
Discover out extra about The River ›
Tsuruoka Cultural Middle, Japan, 2018
Positioned in Tsuruoka, a metropolis on Japan’s northwest coast, this cultural centre is outlined by its sweeping metallic roofs designed to harmonise with a neighbouring historic constructing.
The venue is designed as a civic hub, internet hosting a multipurpose corridor for each cultural and inventive actions within the area.
Bocconi College of Administration, Italy, 2019
Perforated metallic screens have been used to cloak this curved cluster of volumes, designed by SANAA for Bocconi College in Milan.
Interspersed by courtyards knowledgeable by Milanese palazzi, the undertaking was designed to accommodate the Bocconi College of Administration in addition to a sports activities centre for the college.
Discover out extra about Bocconi College of Administration ›
The studio led the in depth renovation of the historic La Samaritaine division retailer in Paris in 2021, following the shop’s closure in 2005 over security considerations.
Commissioned by the homeowners, French luxurious items firm LVMH, the renovation concerned the addition of a brand new undulating glass facade in addition to the restoration of many authentic artwork nouveau and artwork deco particulars.
Discover out extra about La Samaritaine ›
Sydney Fashionable, Australia, 2022
A collection of stepped pavilions make up Sydney Fashionable, an extension to the Artwork Gallery of New South Wales that SANAA opened in 2022.
Located on a hillside overlooking Sydney Harbour’s Woolloomooloo Bay, the museum is organized round a glass-walled atrium and was designed to distinction with the present artwork gallery’s neo-classical model.
