SANAA, the collaborate office of Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa, is an architectural practice established in 1995. Based in Tokyo, Japan, SANAA is a multidisciplinary firm in architecture and planning, landscape, interior, exhibition, as well as furniture and product design. In Japan, the firm has completed numerous critically acclaimed commercial and institutional buildings, community centers, homes and museums. Among these are the O-Museum in Nagano (1999), the N-Museum in Wakayama (1997), and the recently opened flagship store for Christian Dior in Tokyo (2003). Several projects around the world are currently in progress; the Glass Pavilion at the Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio, USA is under construction (completion 2005), Kunstlinie theater and cultural center in Almere, Netherlands, is under construction (completion 2006), and the extension of the Institute Valencia d’Art Modern (IVAM) in Valencia, Spain, Zollverein School, Essen, Germany, the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, NY, USA, an office building on the Novartis Campus, Basel, Switzerland, as well as an artist-in-residence in Nanjing, China, are all in design stages. Sejima studied architecture at the Japan Women's University. She launched her own practice in 1987. In 1995 she started SANAA together with Ryue Nishizawa. Currently Sejima is a professor a Keio University. Nishizawa studied architecture at Yokohama National University. In 1995 he started SANAA together with Kazuyo Sejima. In 1997 he launched his own practice. Currently Nishizawa is an associate professor at Yokohama National University. SANAA has received several awards for their work; amongst these: 1997 The Prize of Architectural Institute of Japan 2000 Erich Shelling Architekturpreis, Karlsruhe, Germany 2002 Arnold W Brunner Memorial Prize in Architecture, American Academy of Arts & Letters, N.Y., USA 2002 Architecure Award of Salzburg Vincenzo Scamozzi, Salzburg, Austria 2004 The Golden Lion for the most remarkable work in the exhibition Metamorph, for the projects ‘21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa’ and ‘Extension of the Institut Valencia d’Art Modern, Valencia, Spain’, in the 9th International Architecture Exhibition, la Biennale di Venezia.