kazuyo sejima

BOUNDLESS ARCHITECTURE portrait by TAKASHI HOMMA   PURPLE — Could you tell us about your Japanese influences? KAZUYO SEJIMA — I grew up in Japan, and I’ve been influenced by its history and culture, of course. But what first made me interested in architecture was the 1958 Sky House by the Metabolist Kiyonori Kikutake. I saw it when I was very young, and I was amazed at how different it was from the suburban houses I knew. I realized it was possible to live differently. I found out about traditional Japanese buildings through the projects I admired in the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s. They were radical contemporary buildings at the time, but gradually I realized they were also very influenced by our history: buildings that adapt, that change with the seasons, that become one big room extending into the landscape. Traditional Japanese architecture is not monumental — it is timber…