And the Pritzker Prize Goes To…

You may have thought that it was time to say sayonara to awards season. But before you roll up the red carpet and pack away the gala gowns, we have an announcement.

The winners of the definitive award in the world of architecture have been announced.

Taking home the industry’s highest honor, the Pritzker Prize, in 2010 are two partners in the Japanese firm Sanaa, Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa. The duo will join an elite circle of visionaries who have defined the public spaces of our world including Frank Gehry, Lord Norman Foster, Philip Johnson, I.M. Pei, Richard Meier, Rem Koolhaas, Herzog & de Meuron, and Zaha Hadid, the first woman ever to win what is sometimes referred to as the Nobel Prize of architecture.

The male-female team lead the projects at Sanaa and their fingerprints are all over buildings like:

Swiss Federal Institute of Technology’s Rolex Learning Center in Lausanne
New Museum in New York
Glass pavilion for the Toledo Museum of Art in Ohio
O-Museum in Nagano, Japan
21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art in Kanazawa, Japan
Serpentine Pavilion in Kensington Gardens, London

They are also working on a 300,000-square-foot branch of the Louvre in northern France. In a prepared statement, the jury commented, “Sejima and Nishizawa’s architecture stands in direct contrast with the bombastic and rhetorical. Instead, they seek the essential qualities of architecture that result in a much appreciated straightforwardness, economy of means and restraint in their work,” leaving many to believe that the new architectural trend will lean less towards an avant-garde philosophy, and more towards simplicity and openess.

If you plan on attending the official awards ceremony, there is still time to consult with your personal stylist, as the event will take place on May 17 on Ellis Island.