mute lines

 The jury praised both architects for creating “architecture that is simultaneously delicate and powerful, precise and fluid, ingenious but not overly or overtly clever”.

The citation said: “They explore like few others the phenomenal properties of continuous space, lightness, transparency and materiality to create a subtle synthesis.

“Sejima and Nishizawa’s architecture stands in direct contrast with the bombastic and rhetorical. Instead, they seek the essential qualities of architecture that result in a much appreciated straightforwardness, economy of means and restraint in their work.”

Sanaa has enjoyed critical success recently with the opening of the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York, the Rolex Learning Centre in Switzerland and last year’s Serpentine Pavilion in London.

Last year Sejima was also appointed as the first female director of the Venice Architecture Biennale for the 2010 event.

“I have been exploring how I can make architecture that feels open, which I feel is important for a new generation of architecture,” said Sejima. “With this prize I will continue trying to make wonderful architecture.”

Nishiwa said: “I receive this wonderful prize with great humility. I am very honoured and at the same time very surprised. Every time I finish a building I revel in possibilities and at the same time reflect on what has happened. Each project becomes my motivation for the next new project. In the same way this wonderful prize has given me a dynamic energy that I have never felt before.”

Past recipients of the title, considered architecture’s equivalent to the Pulitzer prize, include Peter Zumthor, Rem Koolhaas, Norman Foster, Renzo Piano, Herzog & de Meuron and Jean Nouvel.

Previous Japanese winners include Kenzo Tange, Fumihiko Maki and Tadao Ando.

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