Kazuyo Sejima

Kazuyo Sejima (born 29 October 1956) is a Japanese architect who runs her own practice, Kazuyo Sejima & Associates. In 1995, she helped start the firm SANAA, short for Sejima + Nishizawa & Associates. Along with her partner Ryue Nishizawa, she received the Pritzker Prize in 2010, becoming only the second woman to win it and making their partnership just the second ever honored with that award.

Sejima was born in Mito, Ibaraki, Japan. Her father worked as a welding engineer, and her mother, though not employed, was well educated. She earned her undergraduate degree from Japan Women's University in 1979 and completed a master's in architecture there in 1981. That same year, she joined Toyo Ito and Associates, where she worked until 1987.

After her apprenticeship with Toyo Ito, Sejima founded her own firm in 1987. One of her first employees was Ryue Nishizawa, a former student who had worked alongside her at Ito's office. After several years, Sejima proposed they form a partnership, and in 1995 they established SANAA in Tokyo. In 2010, she became the first woman appointed director of the architecture sector for the Venice Biennale, curating its 12th International Architecture Exhibition. That same year, she and Nishizawa shared the Pritzker Prize.

Sejima's major works include the Saishunkan Seiyaku Women's Dormitory in Kumamoto (1990–1991), the Gifu Kitagata Apartment (1994), the Ogasawara Museum in Nagado, the Multi Media Studio in Ōgaki (1995), and the 'De Kunstlinie' Theatre and Cultural Centre in Almere, Netherlands (1998–2007). With SANAA, she designed the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art in Kanazawa (1999–2004), the Glass Pavilion of the Toledo Museum of Art in Ohio (2001–2006), the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York City (2003–2007), the Rolex Learning Center at EPFL in Switzerland (2005–2009), the Serpentine Pavilion in London (2009), Louvre-Lens in France (2012), La Samaritaine in Paris (2020), and the Sydney Modern extension of the Art Gallery of New South Wales (2022). Other projects include the Naoshima Ferry Terminal (2003–2006), the Towada Art Center (2005–2008), and the Inujima Art House project in Okayama (begun 2008). She also entered competitions for the Nasunogahara Harmony Hall (1991), the Chuya Nakahara Memorial Museum (1992), and the New Campus Center for Illinois Institute of Technology (1997–1998), and worked on the Isetan store in Tokyo (2000), Lee Garden in Hong Kong (2000–2001), House in Plum Grove (2001–2003), DIOR Tokyo Omotesando Store (2003), Bairin no le (2003), the Zollverein School of Management and Design in Essen (2003–2006), and an extension of the Institut Valencià d'Art Modern in Spain (begun 2002).

Sejima has received numerous awards, including the Special Prize for Residential Architecture from the Tokyo Architecture Association (1989), the SD Prize (1990), the Kenneth F. Brown Asia Pacific Culture and Architecture Design Award (1995), the Rolf Schock Prize in Visual Arts (2005), the Pritzker Prize (2010), the Praemium Imperiale for architecture (2022), and the Person of Cultural Merit (2024). In 2025, she was awarded the RIBA Royal Gold Medal for Architecture. She also served as a Prix Versailles World Judge in 2019.