Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa of SANAA won the 2010 Pritzker Prize, the first woman-led partnership to do so; Sejima became only the second woman laureate ever.
On March 29, 2010, the Hyatt Foundation announced that Kazuyo Sejima and her partner Ryue Nishizawa, working together as the firm SANAA, would receive the 2010 Pritzker Architecture Prize, widely regarded as architecture's highest honor, often compared to a Nobel Prize for the field.
This announcement was historic on multiple fronts. Sejima became only the second woman to win the prize since its inception in 1979, following Zaha Hadid's win in 2004. More significantly, the award marked the first time a woman-led partnership received the honor, and the first time the prize was shared jointly between a man and woman working as equal partners in a collaborative practice.
The Pritzker jury praised SANAA's work—including the Kanazawa museum, the Toledo Museum of Art Glass Pavilion, and the New Museum in New York—for its clarity, economy of means, and ability to create architecture that feels light, transparent, and deeply attuned to its surroundings and users.
This moment shattered long-standing perceptions that architecture's highest achievements were the province of solitary male 'genius' figures, instead validating collaborative, dialogic practice and opening doors for future recognition of women and partnerships in the profession.