The Illuminating Engineering Society (IES) of Finland yearly grants the Luminous Person award to an individual, who has either with a single act or long-term activity brightened up the world and furthered the case of lighting. The prizes include an itinerant trophy, a piece of art by Kari Alonen, as well as a diploma.
The year 2017 award was granted to Roope Siiroinen on the following basis:
Roope Siiroinen has graduated from the Lighting and Sound Design Department of the Theatre Academy (Finland) in 1995. His dissertation focused on the aesthetics of architectural lighting and floodlighting, and he designed the lighting for the Housing Fair area in Ylöjärvi. After graduating, he worked as a lecturer of lighting design in the School of Art, Music and Media (TTVO) and initiated courses focused on architectural lighting design. Several modern day influencers in the field of architectural lighting have graduated from TTVO.
At the same time, Siiroinen founded a design agency VALOA design Ltd., which specialises in architectural lighting. The company has pioneered nationally and won both national and international awards. Their most remarkable pieces of work have been the landscape lighting of the Tammerkoski dam (Lighting Project of the Year 1999), Tampere Central Square (LUCI award 2005), the Master Plan of Jyväskylä (town awarded with LUCI 2009), the façade lighting of the Naistenlahti Power Plant (Edison Award of Excellence 2007), the Wuxi Opera House in China in 2010, the Turku library bridge (Bridge of the year 2014) and the façade lighting of the Solo Sokos Hotel Torni (Lighting Project of the year 2015). International commissions have taken the company to the Baltic countries, Russia and China. Besides working with design, Siiroinen has worked as a visiting lecturer and teacher of the field both in Finland and abroad.
Early in his career, Roope was a pioneer in the lighting design for visually built environments. He has successfully lead VALOA design Ltd. for twenty years. Through their agency, many designers have received their first lessons in architectural lighting as well as an opportunity to advance in the field. As for Mr. Siiroinen, he has impacted the Finnish lighting culture and the outlook on lighting as an aesthetic and technological concept including the cityscape.
