Winners of the Forum AID Award 2007
The winners of the Forum AID Award 2007 were annonced at a prize ceremony in February. The Forum AID competition is the biggest of its kind in northern Europe and turns the spotlight on the best that has been produced in the Nordic region during the past year.
The Forum AID Award is awarded by the magazine Forum AID and comprises three categories: A for architecture, I for interior design and D for design.
This year’s winners are:
A
Tautra Maria Convent, Tautra, Norway
Architect: Jensen & Skodvin through Jan Olav Jensen and Børre Skodvin
Client: the Cistercian nuns at Tautra
The jury’s motivation:
“In spite of this architecture being deeply rooted in the traditions of the Scandinavian region, the Tautra Maria convent is a totally unique building. The architect has charged a worn-out and threadbare design idiom with new energy and relevance. To further clothe God’s house in such a plebeian costume indicates great courage and a desire for experimentation. Tautra Maria Convent denotes a radiant rekindling for Scandinavian architecture.”
I
Baron House, Ystad, Sweden
Architect: John Pawson Ltd through John Pawson
Client: Fabien Baron and Malin Ericson
The jury’s motivation:
“In colour, form and choice of materials, this sharply defined house links up with the local architecture. But what first appears to be a modest Skåne homestead, shows itself on the inside to be spacious and as magnificent as a cathedral. Sensual openings bring in the surrounding landscape and allow the light to play and define the rooms. A masterpiece that makes you cast your mind back to the most praiseworthy private houses of architectural history.”
D
North Tile
Designer: Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec
Client: Kvadrat A/S
The jury’s motivation:
“North Tile is a textile with architectonic qualities, a curtain of building stones of a type that has never previously been seen. Apart from the splendid acoustic properties of the panels and the infinite possibilities they provide to expose the client’s range of textiles, the design helps to profile a company that until now has had some identity problems. Scandinavia has acquired a new Lego. Chapeau!”
Click here for photos of the winning objects and the members of the jury.
The winners were announced on February 6, at a ceremony in a forgotten major work by Gunnar Asplund, Statens bakteriologiska laboratorium’s former premises in Stockholm.
Skanska Fastigheter Stockholm is the main partner for the prize.
In total, 324 entries were sent in to this year’s competition from architect offices and designers in the entire Nordic area. Of these, 72 continued to the final where they were judged by Deyan Sudjic, Patricia Urquiola, Johanna Grawunder and Ellen van Loon:
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.
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.
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.
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.
Background
The Forum AID Award 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 Award is the only design prize that judges the entire annual production of the Nordic area.
The selection process is carried out in two stages. Each Nordic country is represented through its selection committee. The task of the committees is to select the best objects in their respective countries or by their countrymen abroad. The committees choose freely from those objects that had been carried out during the period October 1, to September 30, the year before.
For more information about the Forum AID prize, contact Daniel Golling, +46 8 555 400 65, daniel.golling@forumaid.com
For more information about the winning projects, contact:
Tautra Mariakloster
Jensen & Skodvin, Jan-Olav Jensen, +47 22994899
Baron House
John Pawson, +44 2078372929
North Tile
Erwan och Ronan Bouroullec/Bettina Brynaa Nielsen/Kvadrat +45 89531897
