The SANAA Studios

Learning from Japan: Single Story Urbanism

During three spring seasons between 2006 and 2008, the Pritzker Prize winning architectural duo Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa taught at the School of Architecture at Princeton. The SANAA Studios explored Japan’s contemporary society as a context for architecture and considered its particular perspective on space, personal and public space. Design studies were situated within the specific demographics and social variables of three distinct sites in Japan.

This book forms an attempt to capture the atmosphere in which the studios were conducted and register some of the findings gained out of exploring the office, its methods and its context. As an overall thematic it asks: What can we learn from SANAA? It tries to frame SANAA’s compassionate search for new architectures within a larger societal context. It combines analyses, essays, documentary, design proposals and “objets trouvé” within one book. For this publication, Dutch architectural photographer Iwan Baan, has revisited the three sites in Japan to capture the spirit of its context and the SANAA buildings in use.

The SANAA Studios
Learning from Japan: Single Story Urbanism
Florian Idenburg and Princeton University,
School of Architecture (Eds.)
Photographs: Iwan Baan
Design: Geoff Han
2010, English, softcover
21.6 × 28 cm, 144 pages
120 illustrations
ISBN: 978-3-03778-190-6
EUR € 29.90 / UK £27.– / US $44.90

For ordering please contact the Publisher
- Lars Müller Publishers - www.lars-mueller-publishers.com

Among recent publications on SANAA we would also like to point out the following ones:

SANAA Sejima Nishizawa 2004-2008
ISBN: 978-8488386489
Published 2009 by El Croquis

SANAA and the New Museum, New York
Joseph Grima, Karen Wong (Eds.)
ISBN: 978-3-03778-140-1
Published 2008 by Lars Müller