TOKYO RIDE - Ryūe Nishizawa and Kazuyo Sejima. New Film by Beka & Lemoine, Coming Soon!

Ila Beka and Louise Lemoine —now cult figures in the European architecture world— rose to fame with their 2008 documentary film “Koolhaas Houselife” a film is smart, honest, heartfelt, thought-provoking and at times hilariously funny.

The documentary shows us the difficulties of living with an architectural masterpiece —designed by Rem Koolhaas for Ms. Lemoine’s paraplegic father — a great reflection between the idealism of architects and the realities of everyday life.

Next Film, release in September, will show us a very interesting ride, a everyday life with Ryūe Nishizawa and his Giulia.

After the multi awarded «Moriyama San», «Tokyo Ride» is a new step of Bêka & Lemoine’s immersion within Tokyo’s busy daily life. Revisiting the genre of the road movie in a very diaristic and personal way, the film takes us on board of Ryue Nishizawa’s vintage Alfa Romeo (Giulia) for a day long wandering in the streets of Tokyo.

More than a portrait, in the classical sense, of one of the most talented and celebrated Japanese architect of today, the film renders in its pure spontaneity the experience of this friendly urban drift.

Ryue Nishizawa narrates along the way his strong relationship with his home town through some sites he personally affectionates, buildings that have influenced him, and some of his own architecture projects.

The film questions how rooted architecture practice is and how much the built and cultural environment feeds and shapes our imagination.

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More information

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Tokyo Ride

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France, 2020, 4K, Black & White, 90 min.

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Image and Sound

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Ila Bêka

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Editing and Production

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Louise Lemoine & Ila Bêka.

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Collaborators

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Color grading.- Melo Prino.
Sound mix.- Walter Amati - Fuji Studio.

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Film release

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September 2020

KAZUYO SEJIMA

Kazuyo Sejima. Architect. Born 1956 in Ibaraki prefecture, Japan. Master’s in Architecture, Japan Women’s University, 1981. Worked in office of Toyo Ito before founding Kazuyo Sejima and Associates in 1987. Founded SANAA with Ryue Nishizawa in 1995. Awards won by SANAA include the Arnold Brunner Memorial Medal of the American Academy of Arts and Letters (2002), the Golden Lion at the 9th International Architecture Exhibition of the Venice Biennale (2004), a design prize from the Architectural Institute of Japan (2006), the Kunstpreis Berlin from the Berlin Academy of Arts (2007), and the Pritzker Architecture Prize (2010). Works by SANAA include the Glass Pavilion at the Toledo Museum of Art; the De Kunstlinie Theater and Cultural Center in Almere...

RYUE NISHIZAWA

Ryue Nishizawa. Architect. Born in 1966 in Tokyo. In 1990, he graduated from Yokohama Graduate School of Architecture, Yokohama National University, and joined Kazuyo Sejima & Associates. In 1995, he founded a firm named SANAA together with Kazuyo Sejima. He established Office of Ryue Nishizawa in 1997. In 2001, he was appointed as Assistant Professor at Yokohama Graduate School of Architecture, Yokohama National University (Y-GSA), and has been a Y-GSA Professor since 2010.

His numerous awards include the Golden Lion Award of the 9th International Architecture Exhibition at the 2004 Venice Biennale of Architecture, and the 2010 Pritzker Architecture Prize.

His main works include: International Academy of Media Arts and Sciences (IAMAS) Multimedia Studio*, Weekend House, Dior Omotesando Store*, 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa*, Moriyama House, House A, The Glass Pavilion of the Toledo Museum of Art*, Marine Station Naoshima*, Stadttheater Almer (De Kunstlinie)*, New Museum*, Towada Art Center, ROLEX Learning Center*, Teshima Art Museum. * SANAA design collaborated with Kazuyo Sejima.

KAZUYO SEJIMA & RYUE NISHIZAWA. SANAA

Kazuyo Sejima (Ibaraki, Japan, 1956) and Ryue Nishizawa (Kanagawa, Japan, 1966) worked independently from each other before founding the SANAA Ltd. studio in 1995. Having studied architecture at the Japan Women’s University, Sejima went on to work for the renowned architect Toyo Ito. She set up her own studio in 1987 and in 1992 was proclaimed Young Architect of the Year in Japan. Nishizawa studied architecture at the Yokohama National University. In addition to his work with Sejima, he has had his own practice since 1997.

The studio has built several extraordinarily successful commercial and institutional buildings, civic centres, homes and museums both in Japan and elsewhere. These include the O Museum in Nagano (1999) and the N Museum in Wakayama (1997), the Day-Care Center in Yokohama (2000), the Prada Beauty Store in Tokyo and Hong Kong (2001), the Issey Miyake and Christian Dior Building in Tokyo (2003) and the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art in Kanazawa (2004). Sejima also designed the famous Small House in Tokyo (2000), the Toledo Museum of Art Glass Pavilion, Toledo, Ohio (2001-2006), the extension to the Institut Valencia d’Art Modern, Valencia, Spain (2002 – ), the Zollverein School, Essen, Germany (2003-2006), the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York (2003-2007) and the Novartis Campus WSJ-157 Office Building, Basle, Switzerland (2003 – ).

In 2004 Sejima and Nishizawa were awarded the Golden Lion at the 9th Venice Architecture Biennale for their distinguished work on the Metamorph exhibition.

Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa have won the 2010 Pritzker Prize.

The 12th International Architecture Exhibition, was directed by Kazuyo Sejima, the first woman to direct the venice architecture biennale, since its inception in 1980.

Ryue Nishizawa and Kazuyo Sejima. Kazuyo Sejima

Ila Bêka y Louise Lemoine Bêka and Lemoine

Ila Bêka y Louise Lemoine. Artists, filmmakers, producers and publishers, Ila Bêka and Louise Lemoine have been working together for the past 10 years mainly focusing their research on experimenting new narrative and cinematographic forms in relation to contemporary architecture. Since 2007 they have been developing a film series entitled “Living Architectures”. “Koolhaas Houselife”, renowned as the “architecture cult movie” (El Pais), is probably the most famous film of their series, featuring Guadalupe - the irresistible housekeeper of the Bordeaux House built by Rem Koolhaas.

Selected as one of the 100 most talented personalities of 2017 by Icon Design, presented by the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York) as one of the “most exciting and critical design project of the year 2016”, the complete work of Bêka & Lemoine has been acquired in 2016 by the Museum of Modern Art in New-York (MoMA) for their permanent collection. Their films have been widely shown in some of the most prestigious international cultural institutions and events such as the Venice Architecture Biennale, Centre Pompidou (Paris), Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York), Palais de Tokyo (Paris), Barbican Centre (London), CCA (Montreal) and Fondazione Prada (Milan, Italy).