The Inujima and Imabari projects represent two distinct sides of the Japanese architectural practice SANAA and the independent practices of its founders Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa, whose 30 year-long partnership is celebrated through this exhibition. 

Constantly thinking about architecture in its environment, SANAA’s typological studies become means of learning, a slow incremental process by which the work connects to those inhabiting their designs. The study is the underlying framework holding together two projects operating in physical proximity but very different political and cultural landscapes. 

The Inujima project is a long-term engagement with a typical landscape of post-industrial Japan. The island was formerly home to more than 4,000 people at the start of the 20th century but suffered severe depopulation after the closure of local quarries – only about 30 households remain today. From its inception in 2008, the Inujima Project is an ongoing collaboration of Kazuyo Sejima with curator Yuko Hasegawa and the Fukutake Foundation – that views the island as a place of care, aiming to sustain it as a living entity by weaving art and cultural activities into the fabric of everyday life, fostering a convivial and sustainable community ecosystem. This exhibition brings together contributions by Kazuyo Sejima, Ryue Nishizawa and others who work together to nurture and sustain Inujima as a hospitable living landscape. 

The Imabari project is an office building designed for the Imabari Shipbuilding Corporation at a shipyard near the Inujima Island. The conception of this softer and more open work environment – part of an effort to attract workers to the shipyard – enables a closer relationship between workers across the building. Presented in its morphological development across several studies and iterations, the interest in overlapping connections across the building emerges gradually over a two-year period. Imabari’s multiple cell-like evolutions are featured in a landscape of small pedestals designed by SANAA, alongside pieces of furniture designed by Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa. 

Against radically different backgrounds, these projects come from an extended practice over time, guided by a methodology of continuous learning and adaptation that sees architecture as coextensive with the environment it shapes.