Norway Says – Söderberg Prize 2007

Norwegian design group Norway Says receives the Torsten and Wanja Söderberg Prize 2007

The Torsten and Wanja Söderberg Prize 2007 was awarded to the Norwegian designers Torbjørn Anderssen, Andreas Engesvik and Espen Voll, the design group Norway Says.

The award committee of the Röhsska Museum for the Torsten and Wanja Söderberg Prize, funded by the Torsten and Ragnar Söderberg Foundations, decided to award Norway Says this year’s prize of SEK 1,000,000. From this year the prize sum was raised to one million Swedish kronor. According to the Röhsska Museum, this made it the world’s largest design prize in its category: prizes awarded annually, with the laureate chosen by an award committee.

The award committee’s motivation:
“The trio has developed its formal language in the tension between strict reduction and minimal form on one side, and a play with soft, sensual and organic forms on the other. They reduce functional demands and emphasise sensitivity and emotion in a way that plays on the full range of design’s means of expression. Since its establishment in 2002, Norway Says has been one of the most active and successful design groups in the Nordic region. With innovative furniture, textiles, glass, lamps and other industrial design, they have put Norwegian and Nordic design on the international design map and won admiration around the world.”

Prize and exhibition

The prize was presented at a ceremony at the Röhsska Museum in Gothenburg on 5 November, followed by an exhibition from 6 November 2007 to January 2008.

The award committee

Museum Director Bodil Busk Laursen, Danish Museum of Art & Design, Copenhagen
Chief Curator Widar Halén, National Museum, Oslo
Former Museum Director Jarno Peltonen, Helsinki
Stefan Snaebjörnsson, Chairman of the Museum of Design and Applied Art, Iceland, consultant, Reykjavik
Tomas Söderberg, PhD h.c., Torsten and Ragnar Söderberg Foundations
Elsebeth Welander-Berggren, former Museum Director, Röhsska Museum, Gothenburg

By Editorial Team, ScandinavianDesign.com