Kazuyo Sejima The star architect and Pritzker Prize holder will teach architecture starting in October 2015. “I am extremely pleased that the outstanding and innovative architect Kazuyo Sejima has agreed to teach at our university. The Pritzker Prize holder will take up her position as a visiting professor this coming October, initially for one semester,” relates Gerald Bast, Rector of the University of Applied Arts Vienna. In the fall of 2015, a professorial chair will be advertised and the appointment procedure will begin. The Japanese architect has received numerous prizes and awards in the course of her career to date, the highlight being the illustrious Pritzker Prize in 2010. The Pritzker jury’s citation described Sejima’s architecture as “simultaneously delicate and powerful, precise and fluid”. She is the second woman to have received this award, often spoken of as the “Nobel Prize of architecture”. The first was Zaha Hadid, who was honored with the Pritzker Prize in 2004. Hadid will become Professor Emeritus at the end of the summer semester, after fifteen successful years at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. The university will express its appreciation and bid her farewell at a special festive ceremony. Kazuyo Sejima was born in 1956 in Ibaraki, Japan. She concluded her studies in 1981 and, together with Ryue Nishizawa, founded the architecture firm SANAA in Tokyo in 1987. In 2010 she became the first woman to direct the Venice Architecture Biennale. Sejima’s clear designs are characterized by modernity and an exceptional understanding of the spatial experience. Her architecture firm SANAA builds mainly in a minimalist style, using, primarily, textured concrete, steel, aluminum, and glass. The materials remain mostly untreated; when painted, their only color is white. SANAA’s most famous structures are the new building of the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York (2005), the cuboid Zollverein School of Management & Design in Essen (2006), the 2009 Serpentine Gallery Pavilion in London, and numerous projects in Japan, for example the Shibaura Building in Tokyo (2011), Nishinoyama House in Kyoto (2013), and House Dangozaka in Tokyo (2014). SANAA recently won the design competition for the Sydney Modern Project, the expansion of the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Australia. SANAA’s design was chosen over those of eleven other renowned architecture studios. The new building of one of Australia’s leading art museums, located in immediate proximity to Sidney Harbour, is to be opened in 2021. “Kazuyo Sejima’s commitment underlines the position of our university as a dynamic and internationally recognized center of excellence. We enable our students to learn from the best in their fields,” concludes Bast. The Institute of Architecture of the University of Applied Arts Vienna has three architecture studios headed by internationally renowned architects: currently Zaha Hadid, Hani Rashid, and Greg Lynn. A portrait photograph of Kazuyo Sejima is available for download at www.dieangewandte.at/presse. .