With their works - typically composed of elements taken from Western Modernism and traditional Japanese aesthetics - within a cool, minimalistic, yet extremely poetic style, Japanese architect duo SANAA have in a relatively short period of time been able to establish themselves at the very top of the international architecture scene. Some of the latest projects that SANAA (an architectural firm that was founded by Kazuyo Sejima and her partner Ryue Nishizawa in Tokyo in 1995) has been involved in - and which have received much attention - include Zollverein School of Design and Management in Essen (2006), the New Museum in New York (2007) and the Rolex Learning Centre at the École Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL), which opened in Lausanne in the spring of 2010. SANAA has been working together with Vitra for several years. In the summer of 2010, the building of a factory hall designed by the architecture firm will be completed on the Vitra Campus in Weil am Rhein.
In addition to buildings, SANAA has also made a name for itself with a series of designs which have a pleasingly emblematic character which are usually connected to a built project involving the architects. One such design is the organically shaped bench called Flower which Vitra added to its portfolio in 2010. The piece, which was designed in 2001, was first seen in a temporary garden café at the 7th Istanbul Biennale, and in a children’s library (also designed by SANAA) in Toyo Ito’s Mediathek in Sendai. Later, the bench was used in many varied and important SANAA projects: at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Kanazawa (2004), and in the temporary Serpentine Pavilion in London (2009), where the bench formed an exciting dialogue with the surrounding architecture. When it was decided that the bench would be used at the Learning Centre at the EPFL, SANAA and Vitra decided that the design - which had before then only been manufactured in small quantities - was ready to go into production.
Designer: SANAA
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