In May, Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa, a duo of architects known as SANAA, received the Pritzker Prize for architecture; which gives me the opportunity to focus on a long-term collaboration between Walter Niedermayr and SANAA. In a way that is quite reminiscent of the relationship between Thomas Ruff and Herzog&Meuron, Niedermayr has been working closely with the Japanese architects, in order to document SANAA’s projects, such as the Glass Pavilion in Toledo, the Moriyama House in Tokyo, or more recently, the New Museum in NY.The collaboration works perfectly: the pale, almost abstract light that characterizes many of Nierdermayr’s images fits well with SANAA’s minimal buildings, that often play with transparency. It also gives a broader view of the Italian photographer’s talent, who got first known for his man-altered alpine landscapes.
Some of these pictures can be found in a book published in 2007 by Hatje Cantz. For those who make the trip to Copenhagen, the Danish Architecture Centre exhibits a selection of these photographs, until October 1st.
