Kazuyo Sejima chooses Yang Zhao as Rolex Architecture Protégé
15/11/2012.
ROLEX
metalocus, INÉS LALUETA
metalocus, INÉS LALUETA
Kazuyo Sejima will guide and counsel Yang Zhao a young architect from Dali, China, who will benefit from her wide professional experience and artistic direction over one year. Sejima has selected Yang Zaho as part of the Rolex Mentor and Protége arts inititative.
Kazuyo Sejima mentor and Yang Zhao protégé. Tokyo, Japan, 2012. Photography.- Rolex / Hideki Shiozawa.
21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art. Kazuyo Sejima, SANAA.
The Protégé. Yang Zhao.
Overview. Niyang River Visitor Centre by Standardarchitecture in collaboration with Zhaoyang Studio.
Overview from courtyard. Niyang River Visitor Centre by Standardarchitecture in collaboration with Zhaoyang Studio.
Overview from courtyard. Niyang River Visitor Centre by Standardarchitecture in collaboration with Zhaoyang Studio.
Sejima selected Zhao after a global search, which identified three of the world’s leading young architects as finalists (see all of the finalists here).
A year of mentoring. During the mentorship year, young Chinese architect Yang Zhao will collaborate on Home-for-All, (more information here) a project created by his mentor Kazuyo Sejima and other leading Japanese architects in response to the housing crisis following the devastation caused by the 2011 tsunami in Japan. Home-for-All is providing communal gathering places at temporary housing sites for displaced people. Zhao will join the teams of architects, designers, students and tradesmen who incorporate the wishes of the community when constructing the temporary buildings. Of the mentorship, Zhao said: “It’s a gift, but also a job. It’s an honour, but also a mission. My objectives are to experience a challenging and creative collaboration process with Sejima- san, to learn from the design culture in Japan, and to make my contribution to the whole reconstruction project,” he said.
“Yang Zhao puts much care into each of his projects, which are most often located in the outskirts of the city, so that they have a relationship with their context. I look forward to seeing what he would bring to the project in the Tohoku region,” Sejima said.
Zhao and Sejima join six other mentoring pairs in the 2012-2013 cycle, including:
- Dance mentor Lin Hwai-min and protégé Eduardo Fukushima
- Film mentor Walter Murch and protégée Sara Fgaier
- Literature mentor Margaret Atwood and protégée Naomi Alderman
- Music mentor Gilberto Gil and protégée Dina El-Wedidi
- Theatre mentor Patrice Chéreau and protégé Michał Borczuch
- Visual Arts mentor William Kentridge and protégé Mateo López
Each protégé receives 25,000 Swiss francs to support participation in the programme. At the conclusion of the mentoring year, he or she is eligible for an additional 25,000 Swiss francs for the creation of a new work.
The Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative was founded in 2002 to encourage talented individuals through a unique programme of one-to-one mentoring with a major figure in their artistic discipline. Over the past 10 years, the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative creative community has expanded across continents and cultures, and now includes more than 80 major creative artists of different generations and backgrounds.
More information
KAZUYO SEJIMA & RYUE NISHIZAWA. SANAA
Kazuyo Sejima (Ibaraki, Japan, 1956) and Ryue Nishizawa (Kanagawa, Japan, 1966) worked independently from each other before founding the SANAA Ltd. studio in 1995. Having studied architecture at the Japan Women’s University, Sejima went on to work for the renowned architect Toyo Ito. She set up her own studio in 1987 and in 1992 was proclaimed Young Architect of the Year in Japan. Nishizawa studied architecture at the Yokohama National University. In addition to his work with Sejima, he has had his own practice since 1997.
The studio has built several extraordinarily successful commercial and institutional buildings, civic centres, homes and museums both in Japan and elsewhere. These include the O Museum in Nagano (1999) and the N Museum in Wakayama (1997), the Day-Care Center in Yokohama (2000), the Prada Beauty Store in Tokyo and Hong Kong (2001), the Issey Miyake and Christian Dior Building in Tokyo (2003) and the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art in Kanazawa (2004). Sejima also designed the famous Small House in Tokyo (2000), the Toledo Museum of Art Glass Pavilion, Toledo, Ohio (2001-2006), the extension to the Institut Valencia d’Art Modern, Valencia, Spain (2002 – ), the Zollverein School, Essen, Germany (2003-2006), the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York (2003-2007) and the Novartis Campus WSJ-157 Office Building, Basle, Switzerland (2003 – ).
In 2004 Sejima and Nishizawa were awarded the Golden Lion at the 9th Venice Architecture Biennale for their distinguished work on the Metamorph exhibition.
Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa have won the 2010 Pritzker Prize.
The 12th International Architecture Exhibition, was directed by Kazuyo Sejima, the first woman to direct the venice architecture biennale, since its inception in 1980.
Ryue Nishizawa and Kazuyo Sejima. Kazuyo Sejima
YANG ZHAO
Yang Zhao, a Chinese architect, was born in 980, in Chongqing, China. After studying at Tsinghua University, he established his own practice, Zhaoyang Studio, in 2007. For the first three years, the studio worked closely with Standardarchitecture, a leading new-generation design firm, in Beijing.
In 2010, Zhao attended the Harvard Graduate School of Design where he received a master’s degree in architecture with distinction. Among his several built works, the Niyang River Visitor Center in Tibet, completed in collaboration with Standardarchitecture, has received international acclaim as a project that successfully transforms the natural landscape and creates a sense of place in a unique way. Zhao was awarded the 2010 WA Chinese Architecture Award from Beijing-based World Architecture magazine. Located in Dali, Yunnan Province, his studio is involved in exploring architectural solutions to the emerging urban conditions in rural China.
