Simo Heikkilä (born May 2, 1943) is a Finnish
designer
A designer is a person who plans the form or structure of something before it is made, by preparing drawings or plans.
In practice, anyone who creates tangible or intangible objects, products, processes, laws, games, graphics, services, or exp ...
and interior architect. He is known as a designer, teacher and collaborator with a concern for dying craft skills. Heikkilä established his own studio in 1971. He began his career designing shops and exhibitions for
Marimekko
Marimekko Oyj is a Finnish textiles, clothing, and home furnishings company founded by Viljo and Armi Ratia in Helsinki in 1951. Marimekko made important contributions to fashion in the 1960s. It is particularly noted for its brightly colored pri ...
and then moved into designing furniture. Heikkilä has acted as the Director of Aalto University's Wood Studio and is an honorary fellow of
Aalto University
Aalto University ( fi, Aalto-yliopisto; sv, Aalto-universitetet) is a public research university located in Espoo, Finland. It was established in 2010 as a merger of three major Finnish universities: the Helsinki University of Technology, the ...
.
Born in
Helsinki
Helsinki ( or ; ; sv, Helsingfors, ) is the capital, primate, and most populous city of Finland. Located on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, it is the seat of the region of Uusimaa in southern Finland, and has a population of . The city ...
, Heikkilä has received numerous design awards including the Pro Finlandia medal in 2003 and the Kaj Franck Design Prize in 2011. The prize jury for the Kaj Franck Design Prize noted that "with his humorous touch, Heikkilä has guided young people towards an ecological and practical use of material."
In 2009 Heikkilä invited a group of 21 international designer, including
Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec, Konstantin Grcic and
Jasper Morrison, to reinterpret the Sami knife or leuku. Each designer was sent an original knife made by a Sami craftsman and given the simple brief to make it better. At the time Simo Heikkilä said of the project, "The leuku is a beautiful and functional object, pure in shape, well balanced and simply composed. Locally developed objects like this are vanishing all over the world." The results of the collaboration were exhibited in
Finland
Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...
and the Saint-Étienne Design Biennial in
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...
, and published as a book.
[Rawsthorn, Alice]
"Blade Runners"
''The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'', New York, 6 September 2010. Retrieved on 17 May 2014.
References
External links
Periferia Design Studio Simo Heikkilä Oy
{{DEFAULTSORT:Heikkila, Simo
1943 births
Living people
Artists from Helsinki
Finnish artists
Finnish designers