Since architecture has increasingly become a global practice, also in the case of Kazuyo Sejima, Ryue Nishizawa and SANAA, and it has become impossible for most architectural critics to see all the buildings they write about in person &mdashsomething that used to be considered a mortal sin&mdash the fact that El Croquis may be one of the last magazines that actually does visit and photograph all the projects they publish is what makes it so special today: they're our witnesses in a way. Through their eyes, and in particular through the photographs of Hisao Suzuki, we see why they think it is worthwhile to publish this architecture and not another. Although I've seen several buildings by Kazuyo Sejima, Ryue Nishizawa and SANAA, I must admit that, unfortunately, I haven't seen most of them &mdashwhich are scattered all over the world&mdash but even if I had the financial means, COVID has made travelling practically impossible over the last three years.

Kazuyo Sejima, Ryue Nishizawa and SANAA represent a unique and inspiring position in the world of architecture and it is important to try to understand their work &mdashif it not as a witness at least as an observer and interpreter. That being said, even if their work is recognizable, it is also elusive. Even if there are elements that return regularly, like the incredibly thin floors and the transparent walls and façades, there doesn't seem to be a method; it is elusive in many different ways. In his exquisite Tractate on Japanese Aesthetics, Donald Richie explains how Japanese aesthetics are largely based on something like a taste that is informed by internalized traditions. But it's too simple to just relate Japanese architecture to a tradition. As Donald Richie writes, "Foreigners now seeking a traditional aesthetic climate in Japan are disappointed. Though there are attempts to bridge the gulf &mdashPokémon is really like Hokusai, etc.&mdash the erosion of the traditional is enormous. On the other hand, Japan's traditional culture is centuries deep and prior patterns can still be found. These occur in the many cultural fossilizations (modern tea ceremony, the Kabuki, and so on) and also in those formations not much noticed: the structure of the language, the nature of religion in the country... The artistic impulse in Japan was internalized to a degree uncommon in any culture. This being so, aesthetic concerns were so taken for granted that they could be employed with an unmatched ease and naturalness".

More than fossilizations, these cultural singularities have remained as simulacra in the sense coined by Baudrillard: copies from which the originals have been lost or forgotten in endless processes of translation. This may be because most Japanese cities have been destroyed many times in history, because of earthquakes, tornados and fires, because of the allied fire bombings at the end of the Second World War, without forgetting the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This destruction, and how one should deal with it, have long been important aspects of Japanese culture, as in the classic 12th-century text Hōjōki, in which the poet Kamo No Chōmei refers to what he sees as a senseless accumulation of wealth in cities, since it will only be destroyed repeatedly. There are several translations of this text, which have more differences than one would expect, and all subtly emphasize different aspects. At the moment of writing, Kamo No Chōmei himself had withdrawn from the city many years earlier, instead living in a simple, ever smaller hut that, in the end, covered only ten square feet. The whole thing and his few belongings could be packed on a carriage to be taken somewhere else.

This kind of withdrawal may not be possible or even desirable today &mdashnew communication media and globalization in general now reach every spot in the world&mdash but as a particular kind of modesty it seems internalized in many other ways: in the simplicity of architecture and things, and in the integration of nature and culture, the private and the public, into even the densest of urban architectures. City and nature fold into each other.

All in all, the elusiveness of SANAA's work sometimes leaves the interpreter like the main protagonist of 'Tokyo Trilogy', a series of postmodern noir detective novels by David Peace, in which three Philip Marlowe-like, lonely Japanese detectives try to solve the real-life disappearance, in 1949, of one of Japan's most powerful figures. The detectives move through the completely destroyed landscape of Tokyo after the Second World War trying to unravel murders, but they all fail, and in the end find themselves in ever more desperate confusions, both where the cases are concerned and on a personal level.

Kazuyo Sejima is very aware of the new global condition in which architecture finds itself. Intriguingly, she is carefully optimistic about the consequences. In her introductory text for the 2010 Venice Biennale, which she curated, she writes that "the twenty-first century has begun, and many things have changed; people, cultures and economies have never been as connected as they are today. Due to advances in technology, we have started to connect with other people in a completely different way, forming relationships indirectly as through the internet". And she continues: "In this new intangible world, I believe that architecture occupies a unique and important place. Architecture has always been a reflection of the collective consciousness, a physical encapsulation of the evolving lifestyles. Our new perceptions of life arise from this changing society and develop according to which region, culture, or city they are from. We believe that the existence of these impressions will become far more influential in our future".