Lebanese

university
semester 1
2022/2023
Kazuyo sejima
“I have a dream that architecture can bring something to contemporary society.
FBAA2 Architecture is how people meet in space.”

Her education and Her career:

• She got her master’s degree in architecture from Japan
Women’s University in 1981 and set up her own practice in
1987 with the name Kazuyo Sejima & associates.

• Sejima’s work soon earned national recognition and she even

won award of Young Architect of the Year from the Japanese
Institute of Architects in 1992.

• Sejima then turned her firm into SANAA (Sejima and

Nishizawa and Associates) in 1995 in collaboration with
Ryue Nishizawa in Tokyo

• after two years both of them started pursuing their individual

practices and Sejima started working on small scale projects.

• Sejima was the second woman to receive the Pritzker Prize,

which was awarded jointly with Nishizawa.

Her style: Her philosophy:

Her buildings are best known for their clean shinny
surfaces. Glass, marble, and metals are considered the Sejima’s major concern regarding any
pet materials used by her for almost all of her projects. project has always been space’s social use
Sejima’s signature style comprises of her smooth and its potential for adaptation.
surfaced and well-organized buildings accompanied Following this very philosophy Sejima
with modernist elements of time.
doesn’t consider any project to be
Squares and cubes are her favorite shapes of choice completed until its inhabitants put life into
and can be seen excessively in almost all of her
it with their activities.
designs. Sejima is a true believer of blending outdoor
spaces with building’s interior, for this reason she
always incorporates large windows in her buildings
developing a visual connection between indoor and
outdoor spaces.
It is also said that most of the times Sejima takes
inspiration from site and its surroundings before
Osaka University of Arts Kazuyo Sejima
starting off any project. by Kazuyo Sejima House tokyo Shibaura Office,Tokyo

AN EIGHT-YEAR-OLD HER LIFE:

ARCHITECT:
Sejima’s destiny within architecture seemed
sealed since her childhood. When her
parents, a Hitachi engineer and a housewife
with no great interest in design. Brought
home countless magazines looking for ideas
on how to build her next home, little Kazuyo
snatched up one in particular.
She was showing a house of peculiar design
by a famous Japanese architect. Whose
design she would be her teacher in the
future. She didn’t know it at the time, but
that was the spark that sparked her interest
in architecture forever.
Sejima has been known for its remarkable
intensity of work. With shifts that extend up
to fifteen hours a day so she devoted all of
her time to her work and her ambition, so
she had no time to start a family, such as
getting married or having children, so she
Homework n 1:
considered her office and her team to be her Prepared for: Dr Elias n Mattar
family. Prepared by: Myriam El Khoury
INFLUENCE:
Kazuyo sejima was inspired by Kazuo
Shinohara the famous Japanese architecture
and her teacher.