Japan's Bright Light

By Michiko Toyama

Throughout Japan's long economic funk, one street has stood firm as a stronghold of the good old days: Tokyo's hip Omotesando Avenue, where Gucci, Louis Vuitton and other name-brand boutiques have multiplied as if the bubble had never burst. The gilded strip recently got its most flamboyant address yet when Dior opened its largest shop in the world there. But the store is notable for more than the treasures for sale inside. The ultramodern glass building, which resembles a fantastically illuminated medieval castle, is also Omotesando's most striking piece of architecture. Its creator, Kazuyo Sejima, 47, recalls that Dior requested that the building be feminine, elegant and intimate. With her partner, Ryue Nishizawa--with whom she runs SANAA Ltd. (Sejima, Nishizawa & Associates)--Sejima carried out the directive by drawing on a ball gown embellished with tulle ribbons from Dior designer John Galliano's 1997 debut collection. The building, with its beautifully structured drapes behind the glass wall, is the ultimate version of Sejima's work.

In the world of Japanese architecture, Sejima is like Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garcons--an avant-garde talent with a keen business sense. Her firm's awards include an Architectural Institute of Japan prize and the Arnold W. Brunner prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She has been invited to teach at Tokyo's Keio University and has won a string of high-profile projects, including the design of a new home for New York City's New Museum of Contemporary Art.

Sejima's success didn't come all at once. "I hardly won any competitions for 10 years after I opened my firm," she confesses. But today the petite Sejima--wearing minimal makeup and dressed in a frilly black skirt and matching Comme des Garcons loafers--is juggling 10 sizable projects and heading a team of 33 young designers, with whom she often works seven days a week.

First up is the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art in Kanazawa, Japan, which opens in June. Next year will see the completion of the Glass Pavilion at the Toledo Museum of Art in Ohio and the Zollverein School of Management and Design in Essen, Germany. The Zollverein School and the New Museum are set to open in 2006.

As befits a person who lives under constant stress, Sejima says her aim is to create buildings that provide pools of repose within fast-moving cities. She sees her projects as "public spaces where people can be together in one place and talk and interact." It's a soothing vision of leisure that Sejima herself isn't likely to enjoy anytime soon. --By Michiko Toyama