Sanaa’s Serpentine pavilion draws praise
This article was originally published by artinfo.com, an online news and information source for the world of art and culture. artinfo.com is published by Louise Blouin Media.
The unveiling of the Serpentine Gallery's summer pavilion in Hyde Park is a big event every year, and this year is no exception.
The Japan-based duo Sanaa (Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa) have created for the prominent gallery's summer programmes a minimalistic, unobtrusive structure consisting of a biomorphic polished aluminium canopy - resembling, as they say, a wisp of smoke or a pool of water - atop slender steel rods. Its appearance changes according to the weather, allowing it to melt into the surroundings. It works as a field of activity with no walls, allowing uninterrupted views across the park and encouraging access from all sides. It is a sheltered extension of the park where people can read, relax and enjoy summer days. The metal roof structure varies in height, wrapping itself around the trees in the park, reaching up towards the sky and sweeping down almost to the ground in various places. Open and ephemeral in structure, its reflective materials make it sit seamlessly within the natural environment, reflecting both the park and sky around it. |
The Pavilion will be the architects’ first built structure in the UK and the ninth commission in the Gallery’s annual series of Pavilions, the world’s first and most ambitious architectural programme of its kind that annually gives pre-eminent architects their debut in the UK. Sanaa received acclaim for the new home of the New Museum in New York, completed in December 2007, and the Glass Pavilion at the Toledo Museum of Art in Ohio, done in January 2007. The Serpentine pavilion comes down 18 October. |
Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa
Kazuyo Sejima (b. 1956, Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan) studied architecture at the Japan Women’s University before joining the practice of architect Toyo Ito. She launched her own practice in 1987 and was named the Japan Institute of Architects’ Young Architect of the Year in Japan in 1992. In 1995, Sejima, with Ryue Nishizawa (b. 1966, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan), founded the Tokyo-based firm SANAA (Sejima + Nishizawa and Associates). Nishizawa studied architecture at Yokohama National University and, in addition to his work with Sejima, has also maintained an independent practice since 1997. He holds professorships at prestigious institutions such as Yokohama National University and the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne. Sejima and Nishizawa were jointly awarded the Golden Lion at the 9th Venice Architecture Biennale in 2004. Sejima teaches as a Visiting Professor both at Tama Art University and Keio University in Tokyo and, with Ryue Nishizawa, holds the Jean Labatut Professorship at the School of Architecture at Princeton University, New Jersey, USA. SANAA’s numerous celebrated buildings include a satellite of the Louvre Museum in Lens, France; Toledo Museum of Art's Glass Pavilion in Toledo, Ohio, USA; the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York, USA, and the extension of the Institut Valencià d'Art Modern in Valencia, Spain. In Japan, SANAA's work includes the N-Museum in Wakayama; the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art in Kanazawa, and the Onishi Civic Center in Onishi.
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