Great Masters of Light: Leiviskä, Plummer and Foster receive the Daylight Award 2020

Juha Leiviskä and Henry Plummer may not be familiar to everyone who is interested in architecture. Yet anyone who has studied the role of daylight in architecture more closely will find it hard to avoid their buildings and writings: Leiviskä, born in 1936, became known between the 1960s and 1980s primarily for his churches that stage natural light in a unique way. The architectural historian and university professor emeritus, Plummer, made a name for himself above all as an author and architectural photographer. He has written numerous books on daylight, for example in Japanese and Nordic architecture and in Le Corbusier's buildings.

Leiviskä and Plummer will receive the Daylight Award this year, as has just been announced in Copenhagen. The third among the award winners is the British scientist Russell Foster, who has made groundbreaking contributions to research into the influence of light on the human circadian system and the wake-sleep cycle of human beings and animals.
The Daylight Award has been presented every two years since 2016 to people who have made outstanding contributions to daylight in architecture in research and practice. This year, each of the three winners will receive a prize money of 100,000 euros. The donors of the prize are the Villum Fonden, the Velux Fonden and the Velux Foundation - three foundations, all of which are associated with the roof window manufacturer of the same name or the family of its founder.  They had also periodically awarded architects for their work with daylight in previous years, including the Danish architect Jorn Utzon in 1987 and his Swiss colleague Peter Zumthor in 2010.