Nominated to the Forum AID prize 2007
Now we know which buildings, interior designs and products have been nominated for the Forum AID-prize 2007. The Forum AID competition is the largest of its kind in northern Europe and singles out the best that has been produced in the Nordic region during the past year.
The Forum AID prize is awarded by the magazine Forum AID and is comprised of three categories: A for architecture, I for interior design and D for design. Amongst this year’s candidates are a convent, a miniature hotel and furniture inspired by a tree trunk.
Patricia Urquiola, Ellen van Loon and Johanna Grawunder, together with the chair Deyan Sudjic (see the biographies below) have been responsible for the choice. The following nine objects – three in each category – have been nominated by this very experienced jury:
ARCHITECTURE
Kirkenes Hotel by Sami Rintala, Kirkenes/Norway.
Client: Barents Art Triennale
Tautra convent by Jensen & Skodvin, Tautra/Norway.
Client: Tautra Mariakloster
Villa Baron by John Pawson, Ystad/Sweden.
Client: the Baron/Erickson family
INTERIOR DESIGN
Brio Headquarters by Urban Design, Malmö/Sweden.
Client: Brio
Tietgenkollegiet by Lundgaard & Tranberg, Ørestad Nord/Denmark.
Client: the Tietgenkollegiet foundation
Villa Baron by John Pawson, Ystad/Sweden.
Client: the Baron/Erickson family
DESIGN
Gubi II chair by Komplot Design/Denmark.
Client: Gubi/Denmark
Log by Naoto Fukasawa/Japan.
Client: Swedese/Sweden
North Tile by Erwan and Ronan Bouroullec/Frankrike.
Client: Kvadrat/Denmark
“The jury has chosen nine outstanding pieces”, says Mark Isitt, editor-in-chief of Forum AID and the initiator of the prize. “315 objects were received for the competition. The national selection committees in each Nordic country weeded out around 240 of them. The final jury had to decide on over 70 pieces.”
“Seen as a whole, the entries give a clear picture of the situation in the Nordic area. Denmark produces a good deal of architecture of an even and high quality, in Sweden interior design is highly valued, whereas Finland is strong on products. It is also clear that Norway has a new generation of architects who can be considered as some of the Nordic region’s absolute best”, says Isitt.
“Simultaneously the nine nominations signal the fact that it is no longer enough to be best in the Nordic area. Four of this year’s nominations are designed by people not living in the Nordic area. Today’s Nordic architects and designers are competing on an international market.”
The winner of the Forum AID prize will be made public on February 6, 2007. The ceremony takes place at Sweden’s national bacteriological lab’s former premises in Stockholm, a neglected masterpiece by Gunnar Asplund.
The main sponsor is Skanska.
Deyan Sudjic – chair
Deyan Sudjic became the director of London’s Design Museum last September. With this appointment he climbs another step on his career that has led him from London to Glasgow, Milan, Venice and the entire world as a journalist, critic and curator.
Sudjic was born in 1952 and grew up in Acton, west London, with Serbian parents and is now returning to his hometown to take over commando of London’s foremost cultural institution devoted to design. He trained as an architect in Edinburgh, Scotland, and then became a writer and editor for architectural magazines such as Building Design and Architectural Review. He received his major breakthrough in 1983 as founder of the magazine Blueprint, where for a decade as editor-in-chief he documented the emergence of a new generation of British architects and designers who today dominate both the British and international scene. When he left the magazine that established his name, he became head of the 1999 Glasgow City of Architecture and Design festival, and shortly after that became editor of the Italian magazine Domus. During his four-year stay in Milan, he also curate the Venice Biennale in architecture in 2002, and, moreover, wrote a weekly column as architectural critic for The Observer. More recently he has been head of the architecture school at Kingston University in southwest London. Earlier this year he was offered work as the curator for architecture and design at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, but chose to stay in Europe.
Deyan Sudjic led the jury meetings.
Ellen van Loon - A-representative
Ellen van Loon is well-known for being a technically skilful architect with an acute understanding of all aspects of architectural work. She has proved this many times, most recently as responsible architect for Casa da Musica in Porto which, following its inauguration in 2005, was declared one of the world’s most important concert halls by the New York Times. For OMA, she has also directed the work with the Netherlands embassy in Berlin, which was awarded the Mies van der Rohe prize in 2005.
Ellen van Loon was born in 1963 in Rotterdam and studied architecture at the Technical University of Delft. Her first really prestigious merit on her CV came in 1999, with the design of the German parliament building in Berlin for Foster and Partners. Since 2004 she has been managing partner at OMA in Rotterdam. Today she works, amongst other things, with the plans for Bryghusgrunden in central Copenhagen, a commission that OMA won in the summer in competition with Renzo Piano, amongst others. She is coming to Stockholm now in November not just to take part in the Forum AID prize jury work, but also to lecture at the Architect Day, that is being arranged by Sweden’s architects on November 24. Ellen van Loon represented the architectural section at the jury meetings.
Johanna Grawunder - I-representative
Johanna Grawunder was born in 1961 in San Diego, California. At the start of the eighties, the Memphis groups’ extravaganzas enticed her to Florence, where she completed the architectural studies she had begun at the California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo. In 1985, two years after her graduation, she was employed by the Memphis group’s front man Ettore Sottsass, and became his partner a couple of years later. Together they carried out several of Sottsass Associatis’ most discussed architectural projects, including Wolf House in Colorado, Olabuenaga House on Hawaii, Yuko House in Tokyo and the Contemporary Furniture Museum in Ravenna.
In 2001 Grawunder Sottsass left to start her own company in San Francisco and Milan. Since then, besides her interior design commissions, she has designed furniture, lighting and glass collections for Flos, Boffi, Salviati, Mikasa and others. One of her most recent commissions was a permanent lighting installation for the Museo di Arte Contemporanea in Syracuse. As with the other members of the Forum AID prize jury, Grawunder is in great demand as a lecturer, not just in the United States and Europe but in Asia as well.
Johanna Grawunder represented the interior design section at the jury meetings.
Patricia Urquiola - D-representative
Volcano, hurricane or blizzard – the descriptions of Patricia Urquiola are pretty unanimous. It may be that her alleged temperament with its Basque heritage helped her to reach the position of the world’s possibly greatest female designer right now. But this is hardly reflected in her design, which instead is normally characterised as classical, toned down and flexible (with the addition of a little glamour and poetry, according to her own assertion).
Patricia Urquiola was born in 1961 in Oviedo, Spain. Her aim was for an architectural career, but during her final studies in Milan, Urquiola moved over onto the design track, encouraged by her tutor Achille Castiglioni. Since her graduation in 1989 she has designed products and exhibitions for De Padova (together with Vico Magistretti), Alessi, Driade, Kartell, Moroso, B&B and many more. Since 2001 she runs her own Studio Urquiola in Milan.
If furniture for Moroso (the Step chairs and the Lowland settee), were her breakthrough in the design world, it was her interior design for the entrance hall at the Stockholm Furniture Fair in 2004 that made her well-known to a wider Scandinavian circle. Inspired by her own Nordic voyages of discovery, she has designed the armchairs Fjord and Malmo (Fjord was selected for the New York MoMA collection in 2005).
Parallel with her design work, Urquiola has been a busy lecturer at Europe’s foremost design schools, which has given here an overview and experience, making her particularly suitable for jury work.
Patricia Urquiola represented the design section at the jury meetings.
Background
The Forum AID prize is a development of “Sweden’s best interior” – the award that Forum AID (then called Forum) awarded annually between 2000 and 2005. The magazine has changed direction over the last two years, from being a purely Swedish interior design magazine to architecture, interior design and design in the Nordic area, and the awards have been adapted accordingly. The Forum AID prize is the only design prize that judges the entire annual production of the Nordic area.
The selection process has been carried out in two stages. Each Nordic country has been represented through its selection committee. The task of the committees was to select the best objects in their respective countries or by their countrymen abroad. The committees chose freely from those objects that had been carried out during the period October 1, 2005 to September 30, 2006.
