The Architectural Institute of Japan has honored Ryue Nishizawa as one the recipients of the AIJ Prizes for 2012, it was announced Apr 11. Partner with Kazuyo Sejima in the firm SANAA, and principal of his own firm, Office of Ryue Nishizawa, Nishizawa is being recognized in the category of Architectural Design for his design of the teardrop-shaped Teshima Art Museum – a self-supporting concrete shell covering a space of roughly 40-by-60 meters, with a high point of 4.5 meters, which houses the works of artist Rei Naito. Also being recognized in the same category are Mari Watanabe and Yoko Kinoshita Watanabe (both of ADH architects) and Masato Araya, who jointly designed the Makabe Denshokan Museum in Sakuragawa, Ibaraki prefecture. In recent years the Architectural Design category of the AIJ Prize has recognized projects completed in Japan that have high social and cultural value for the localities where they are situated, as well as those that show extraordinary new possibilities for architectural practice and reflect the pressing concerns of the times.
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Interview – Ryue Nishizawa: Societies, Landscapes, Building in Time