Published
2017-11-04The award committee's motivation
"Daniel Rybakken is able to take design to a higher philosophical level. He reflects on big issues such as lighting and interiors, and from this thinking he creates projects that do not follow design history, but instead develop it. With poetic and magical effects, he recreates daylight in closed spaces and gives us a new light."
Rybakkens works in the borderland between art and design. His main focus is daylight and how to artificially recreate its subconscious effect.
His degree project from HDK in 2008 was based on how daylight affects us. Among other things, a table that recreated reflections of sunlight in the floor attracted attention when it was shown at the Milan Furniture Fair the same year.
Rybakken has continued to explore light and lighting, as in a series of lamps for Italian Luceplan and in the light installation Daylight Entrance (Stockholm 2009), where 6500 LEDs in a closed stairwell create an experience of daylight indoors. Today, as a lighting designer, he has gained international recognition with several exhibitions behind him, such as the Layers installation in Paris in 2012. In 2014, he received an offer to start a collaboration with Finnish Artek, founded by Alvar Aalto in 1935.
The prize was awarded at a ceremony on November 4, 2017. From November 5, 2017, the Röhsska Museum hosted an exhibition by and with this year's laureates at the Göteborg City Library.
documentary film
This year's documentary film about the award recipient is made by Stavfel produktion, directed and produced by Carl Johan Engberg.
Daniel Rybakken
Daniel Rybakken was born in Oslo and educated at the Oslo School of Architecture and Design. He holds a Master of Fine Arts from the School of Design and Crafts, HDK, at the University of Gothenburg. He lives and works in Gothenburg, where he has run Studio Daniel Rybakken since 2008.
He has received several international awards for his design, including the Italian design prize Compasso dÓro 2014 and 2016, the Red Dot Award 2007, the Bruno Mathsson Prize 2011, the London Design Medal 2013 and the Hublot Design Prize 2015.
Rybakken works with clients such as Luceplan, Ligne Roset, Galerie kreo, Spazio Rossana Orlandi and Asplund.
Daniel Rybakken Studio