SANAA's Louvre-Lens and Rolex Learning Center: Distortion, Immersion, Inclusion

The Japanese architecture firm SANAA (Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa), winners of the 2010 Pritzker Prize, completed two major European projects: the Louvre-Lens museum (2012) and the Rolex Learning Center at EPFL Lausanne (2010). The Louvre-Lens, designed with landscape architect Catherine Mosbach, sits on the former Saint Théodore mine pit. Its low, crystalline volumes integrate with the mining landscape, rejecting iconic gestures. The building's polished concrete floor follows the terrain's slight slope, and its anodized aluminum and glass screens curve to capture changing light. Inside, the Galerie du Temps (120 x 25 m) presents 6,000 years of art without windows or columns, using curved walls and a GPS audioguide. The Rolex Learning Center (120 x 160 m) features an undulating concrete slab floor with circular patios, creating a continuous interior landscape without opaque walls. Both projects embody what philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy calls 'struction'—a way to apprehend contradictory multiplicities without exclusion. The article was written by architect and philosopher Richard Scoffier.