The jury of the Japanese Praemium Imperiale award named Henning Larsen "Master of Light", emphasizing that in modern architecture he is an unrivaled specialist in the construction of buildings, in the appearance and interior of which it is the lighting that plays a primary role.
Born and raised in a country where winter is very long and summer is unusually short, Larsen has created objects throughout his life that were not lacking in daylight. Graduated from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Larsen founded his own bureau in 1959. For more than half a century, the studio has become one of the largest architectural companies in Scandinavia, with a portfolio of dozens of completed buildings around the world.
Some of Larsen's most famous works include the Malmö City Library (Sweden), the Royal Danish Opera (Copenhagen, Denmark), the School of Architecture in Umeå (Sweden), the Harpa Concert Hall in Reykjavik (Iceland), the Spiegel Group headquarters in Hamburg (Germany). Today, at 87 years old, Henning Larsen no longer runs the bureau, but continues to take an active part in the development of new projects and, as he himself says, "enjoys sketching".
Let us remind you that Praemium Imperiale, an award of the Japan Art Association, is awarded annually to the world's leading masters of those areas of art that are not "covered" by the Nobel Prize. Together with Larsen, the 2012 laureates were the American composer Philip Glass, the Italian sculptor Cecco Bonanotte, the Chinese artist Tsai Guoqiang and the Japanese director Yoko Morishita. Each of them will receive 15 million yen ($ 187,000). The awards ceremony will take place on October 23 in Tokyo.
