Copenhagen-based firm Henning Larsen Architects has been declared the winner of this year's European Prize for Architecture. The award recognizes architects whose work "embodies vision, commitment, and profound respect for humanity and for the social and physical environment."
The annual European Prize for Architecture was established in 2010 by the European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies and The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design. Previous winners have included the Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG), Santiago Calatrava, LAVA Laboratory for Visionary Architecture and Graft Architects.
"We are delighted to present The European Prize for Architecture to this great Danish firm whose powerful designs and a unique design vision celebrate the best of modernist buildings, which are instantaneously complex, iconic, provocative, and profoundly artistic," says Christian Narkiewicz-Laine, President and CEO, The Chicago Athenaeum.
Henning Larsen Architects, which celebrates its 60th anniversary this year, often draws inspiration from nature and has appeared several times in New Atlas. A selection of the firm's work can bee seen below, and there are more examples in the gallery.
One standout project is the Eysturkommuna Town Hall. Located in the Faroe Islands, the town hall blends into the rugged green landscape and creates a grass-covered bridge for locals to cross a river. Its interior includes a glass floor allowing people to watch the water below.
The Wave is another notable recent work. Installed on the edge of a fjord in Denmark, the residential building's undulating design was informed by surrounding hills, which are noteworthy in the relatively flat Denmark, as well as the lapping of the fjord's water.
The Hangzhou Yuhang Opera is a massive project in China that involved the construction of a man-made lake. The building itself takes the form of a giant piece of cracking ice on the surface and is made up of two intersecting slopes and a white concrete facade broken up by glazing.
Source: Henning Larsen Architects
