Largest design prize in the world awarded to the Finnish designer Harri Koskinen
Lehtikuva: Vesa MoilanenThe Röhsska Museum prize committee for the Torsten and Wanja Söderberg Prize, which is donated by the Torsten and Ragnar Söderberg foundations, has decided to award the Finnish designer Harri Koskinen with this year’s prize of SEK 1,000,000.
A unanimous jury has awarded the 2009 Torsten and Wanja Söderberg’s Prize to the Finnish designer, Harri Koskinen.
The prize committee´s reasoning is as follows:
“Harri Koskinen is one of the foremost designers now occupied with the task of continuing the Nordic design tradition. His extensive, wide-ranging body of work has a unique, austere design that is consistently expressed with clear Nordic roots in its demands for good function and simplicity of form, as well as in the choice of materials. These elements combine to create lasting value. At the same time as he enjoys successful partnerships with design-intensive companies around the world, he is also participating in the renewal of his homeland’s design industry.”
The prize will be ceremoniously awarded at the University of Gothenburg on 4th November and will be followed by an exhibition at the Röhsska Museum from 5th November 2009 until spring 2010.
The Torsten and Wanja Söderberg’s Prize was inaugurated in 1992 by the Torsten and Ragnar Söderberg Foundations, two of Sweden’s most important donors to Sweden’s research and development. The foundations were formed in 1960. During the year 2007, the foundations allocated SEK 290,9 million to scientific and corresponding purposes.
