Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa’s architecture belongs to the limits. It does not reside in modelled space or in sculptured volume, nor does it rely on articulating elements or on the gravity of matter: it effortlessly inhabits the borders of encounter, which slim down implausibly, becoming nearly virtual; whether they be glass, steel or concrete, the enclosures of their precise precincts aspire to the condition of mathematical surfaces. This extreme abstraction is the ultimate source of the fascination inspired by the Japanese pair’s architecture. Their construction at the limit is essentially architecture in the negative, achieved through a stripping-down: buildings strive to divest themselves of thickness, dispense with inertia, rid themselves of density. The process generates objects with an immaterial appearance, metaphysical in that they transcend the realm of the senses’ standard conventions, and dream like in so far as they dwell in the vague border between sleep and waking... [+]