The Architecture of Daylight: Three Short Films about a Natural Phenomenon

In May 2020 Finnish architect Juha Leiviskä, American architectural historian and photographer Henry Plummer and British neurobiologist Russell Foster won this year’s Daylight Award. Now the competition organizers have completed three short films that introduce the prize-winners and their work in a powerful way.

Vertical Daylight leads us through the work of Juha Leiviskä and shows his particular way of integrating daylight into buildings characterized by his distinctly personal style. The film presents several of Leiviskä’s remarkable structures in Helsinki.

The Vital Daylight was filmed in Russell Foster’s office in Oxford. Foster uses research results to explain how the human eye decodes our biological circadian rhythm by using receptors that were still completely unknown 20 years ago − a discovery with far-reaching consequences.

The Architecture of Natural Light is the cinematic retelling of Henry Plummer’s book of the same title. Plummer’s photographs of architectural masterpieces, as well as his observations concerning the role played by daylight in buildings, work together to create a must-see survey of architectural history.

Since 2016, the Daylight Award has been conferred biennially to those who have proved themselves in research and practice devoted to daylight in architecture. The sponsors of the award are the Villum Fonden, the Velux Fonden and the Velux Stiftung − three foundations that are all connected with the eponymous roof-window manufacturer or its founder’s family.