2017 Isamu Noguchi Award bestowed to John Pawson and Hiroshi Senju

The Isamu Noguchi Museum announced London-based architect John Pawson and Japanese-born painter Hiroshi Senju as the 2017 recipients of the honorable Isamu Noguchi Award, which recognizes individuals whose work embodies the collaborative, multi-disciplinary, and cross-cultural qualities of influential landscape architect and artist Isamu Noguchi. First awarded to Norman Foster and artist Hiroshi Sugimoto in 2014, previous recipients of the award also include architect Yoshio Taniguchi and industrial designer Jasper Morrison (2015) and Tadao Ando and Elyn Zimmerman (2016).

Pawson (whose work on London's Design Museum was shortlisted in the 2017 RIBA London Awards yesterday) and Senju will be presented with the award during the museum's annual benefit on May 16.

Read more about this year's recipients below:

John Pawson: “With projects that encompass private houses to commercial showrooms, as well as art spaces, stage sets, a monastery, and yachts—Pawson’s work continues to grow out of the expressions of simplicity that have formed a consistent component of both Eastern and Western traditions, from Japanese concepts of Zen to Cistercian monastic architecture. In 2016 he completed his first major public project, the interior remodeling of the former Commonwealth Institute building in London, an iconic example of post-war British Modernism, now the new permanent home of the Design Museum in London. His global travels have included four years in Japan, with time spent in the studio of designer Shiro Kuramata.”

Hiroshi Senju: Senju “is noted worldwide for sublime, frequently monumental images of waterfalls and cliffs that combine a minimalist visual language that is rooted in Abstract Expressionism with ancient Japanese painting techniques. He is one of a handful of contemporary masters of the 1,000-year-old nihonga style of painting, using pigments made of minerals, ground stone, shell, and corals suspended in glue made of animal hide [...] Senju was the first Asian artist to receive an Honorable Mention Award at the 1995 Venice Biennale. His work is included in numerous international collections, such as New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Brooklyn Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles; and The National Museum of Art in Osaka, among others.”