Henning Larsen

The Imperial House of Japan and the Japan Art Association have every year since 1989 been awarding the Praemium Imperiale, endowed with 15 million Yen (132,000 euros), to five artists in painting, sculpture, architecture, music, and cinema or theater. The 2012 awardees were the Chinese painter Cai Guo-Qiang, the Japanese dancer Yoko Morishita for Theater and Cinema, the Italian sculptor Cecco Bonanotte, the British composer Philip Glass, and the Danish architect Hennning Larsen. Born in 1925, Larsen worked with Arne Jacobsen (1952-1953) and Jørn Utzon (1958) before setting up his own practice in Copenhagen in 1959 and beginning a personal path strongly rooted in the tradition of modern Scandinavian design. His numerous buildings include the Saudi Arabian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Riyadh (1984) – which earned him the 1989 Aga Khan Award and international fame –, the Opera House of Copenhagen (2004) and the Harpa Concert Hall and Conference Center in Reykjavik, a work that involved collaboration with the artist Olafur Eliasson, construction of which came to an end in 2012.