SANAA in Sydney

This important new book celebrates the design of SANAA's new building for the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney led by Pritzker Prize-winning architects Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa.

The building, named Naala Badu, meaning 'seeing waters' in the Sydney Aboriginal language, opened to the public in December 2022. It is the culmination of a decade-long vision - the Sydney Modern Project - to transform a 152-year-old public institution into an art museum campus with a seamless connection between art, architecture and landscape. It is Australia's newest and most significant cultural landmark of the 21st century.

Richly illustrated, SANAA in Sydney takes readers behind the scenes of this ambitious project - from the international architecture competition, through the design and construction process, to the building's opening - and offers reflections on its built form and engagement with art, people and the environment. It includes a design statement by SANAA architects Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa along with texts by the Art Gallery's director, Michael Brand; Harvard University architectural historian Eve Blau; professor of architecture at the University of Technology Sydney, Anthony Burke; director of Kanazawa's 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Yuko Hasegawa; and the Art Gallery's head of the Sydney Modern Project, Sally Webster. Design competition jurist, architect and academic, Juhani Pallasmaa, has authored the foreword. The book also reunites SANAA's founders with Iwan Baan, one of architecture's most sought-after photographers.

SANAA in Sydney will be promoted as part of the celebrations marking the second anniversary of the building's opening in 2024, and through the Art Gallery's media channels.

Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa founded the architectural firm SANAA in 1995 and have since designed a number of award-winning buildings around the world, including the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art in Kanazawa and Grace Farms in Connecticut. In 2010, they were awarded the Pritzker Architecture Prize. SANAA creates spaces that bring people together through openness and lightness.

Anthony Burke is a professor of architecture at the University of Technology Sydney with 25 years' experience in lecturing, publishing, exhibiting and celebrating the value of good design and architecture around the world. He is the presenter for the ABC TV programs Restoration Australia and Grand designs transformations and was co-creative director for the Australian Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2012.


Michael Brand is the director of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, where he has led the transformation and expansion of the institution through the Sydney Modern Project. Prior to his appointment at the Art Gallery in 2012, he was the director of the Aga Khan Museum in Toronto, the J Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond. Brand is a scholar of Indian and Islamic art, architecture and landscape, and is recognised as a prominent voice in the global conversation about the future of art museums.

Yuko Hasegawa is a Tokyo-based curator, art critic, and honorary professor at the Graduate School of Global Arts, Tokyo University of the Arts. She is the director of the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, and artistic director of the Inujima Art House Project. She has written numerous books and papers, with her recent work exploring notions of ecology and placemaking. Her awards include Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and the Japan Commissioner for Cultural Affairs Award.


Juhani Pallasmaa is a distinguished architect and professor emeritus based in Helsinki. His previous positions include rector of the Institute of Design, Helsinki; director of the Museum of Finnish Architecture; and professor and dean of the Faculty of Architecture, Aalto University. He is the author of 70 books on architecture, including The eyes of the skin: architecture and the senses, which has become a classic in the field. Pallasmaa was a member of the Pritzker Architecture Prize Jury from 2008 to 2014.

Sally Webster is the head of the Sydney Modern Project at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, managing the Art Gallery's major expansion project since the international architectural design competition in 2014. Prior to joining the Art Gallery, she held project and curatorial roles with Arts NSW and the Historic Houses Trust of NSW where she managed a number of arts and cultural development projects as well as developed and delivered exhibitions.

Eve Blau is an American architectural historian and critic. She is adjunct professor of the history and theory of urban form and design at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University, where she is also director of the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies and co-director of the Harvard Mellon Urban Initiative. She has written extensively on the intersections between art, media, architecture and urbanism, with a particular emphasis on the social, political, and economic factors that shape built environments.

Iwan Baan is a Dutch architecture and documentary photographer who works with the world's foremost architects, such as SANAA, Rem Koolhaas, Herzog & de Meuron, Zaha Hadid, Diller Scofidio & Renfro, and Toyo Ito. Alongside his commissions, Baan has collaborated on several successful book projects. Named one of the 100 most influential people in contemporary architecture in 2011, Baan is a recipient of the AIANY Stephen A Kliment Oculus Award.

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