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Despite completing many different commissions in Japan since forming their Tokyo-based firm SANAA in 1995, architects Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa have developed an international reputation in recent years for designing contemporary art museums – particularly the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art in Kanazawa (2004) , the Toledo Museum of Art's Glass Pavilion (2006)  and the New Museum in New York (2007) . After Frank Gehry's Guggenheim Museum Bilbao (1997) , it seemed essential that an art museum be also a spectacular image for a city, the architecture becoming an artwork in itself. However, SANAA's approach to museum architecture appears opposed to this 'spectacular' impulse. Instead, their museum spaces create an experience for the audience that is at once still and reflective. On the occasion of SANAA's recent installation for the Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation (SCAF)  in Sydney, D. J. Huppatz spoke with the architects about breathing new life into exhibition spaces.

D. J. Huppatz: What has been your experience in designing art museums in different countries – are there significant shifts in audience or curatorial expectations, and does this affect the way you design the spaces, lighting or circulation routes for different galleries?

SANAA: Strangely, we have found that curatorial and programmatic ideas do not differ that much across cultures in the contemporary art world. That said, every client has a unique personality. The dynamic that they create in the back and forth of the design process can influence a project. Often our clients have a similar end point in mind, but their concerns expressed along the way can vary widely. Different places of course have different atmospheres, and this may have an even greater effect on our design. The roughness of the New Museum and the grittiness of its surrounding Bowery neighbourhood is one kind of relationship that we found.

DH: SANAA's art museums seem to be focused on a particular type of viewing experience, making the audience aware of the exhibition space itself. What type of experience do you hope your museums will offer, and how does the architecture contribute to this experience?

S: We try to leave the exhibition spaces in our museums open to artistic interpretation. Ideally, the architecture should be able to disappear. At the same time, we try to allow some connection with the outside world. We hope that this experience is a series of punctuations rather than a linear one ...

DH: The recent SANAA installation for SCAF was a return to Sydney after an absence of ten years, with many high-profile buildings completed in the meantime. Can you discuss the relationship between your installation and architectural work and how the two interact and inform each other.

S: There is perhaps no clear divide between our building and installation work. The creative process is not dissimilar in that both employ models in search of an interesting spatial organisation. With installations, however, the end product allows no opportunity for a client's or an artist's personality to come into play. The atmosphere in its entirety has to be created, which is often difficult. Like a building, this can be about pulling the outside in – whether through reflection, distortion or something else ...

This article appears in excerpted form. You can read the entire article in Art & Australia's Summer 2009 issue.