Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa Never Create The Same Building Twice

Kazuyo Sejima is futuristic in her thinking and deeply concerned with space, though of the earthbound sort. If you haven't heard of her or her design partner Ryue Nishizawa-their Tokyo firm is called SANAA-you soon will: they are about to make their mark on cities from Amsterdam to Valencia, New York to Basel. Their first project outside Japan, a glass pavilion for the glass collection of the Toledo Museum of Art in Ohio, is set to open in early 2006. Their theater in Almere, near Amsterdam, is under construction and their New Museum of Contemporary Art in Manhattan will break ground in late 2005.

Don't expect to see a signature style in their cutting-edge designs. Sejima, 48, nd Nishizawa, 38, don't like to repeat themselves. "One of our most important philosophies is that we're always trying to create something new," says Nishizawa. Just look at their recently opened, prize-winning museum in Kanazawa, Japan-a sleek, low-slung building of layers of glass-and compare it with the design for the New Museum in New York. That structure is an uneven stack of boxes, each floor set back or cantilevered out to allow natural light inside. But all their designs share a lightness and elegant simplicity. And they like to connect the inside with the outside, often using transparent or translucent materials. "We want to make architecture