We are deeply honoured that Reiulf Ramstad has been awarded the Packness Prize 2026. Established in memory of architect Einar Packness, the prize recognises architecture with a particular connection to North Jutland — a landscape and culture we have come to know through several meaningful projects over the years. To be recognised in a place where architecture, landscape and everyday life are so closely connected makes this distinction especially meaningful to us.

You treat places with care and respect, and you insist that the architect is an authority whose spatial and aesthetic vision should be respected, says Lasse Andersson, chair person of the Packness Foundation.

The jury highlights an architecture that seeks to "make places felt — from a field near Hjørring and an exhibition space in Aalborg, to the landscape of Fur and the shores of the Limfjord in Thy". In House of Grain and SMK Thy / Naturlandsbyen, they recognise the ambition to strengthen cultural life beyond the traditional centres, while approaching each place with care, respect and a belief in architecture as both a spatial and cultural responsibility.

“One of the remarkable qualities of the practice is its ability to recognise potential and create architecture that sensitively evokes the character of the places it inhabits, transforming the periphery into new cultural epicentres, Lasse Andersson states.

With an ambition to help repair the world for the future, and with a sensitivity towards and understanding of peripheral areas and landscapes, Reiulf Ramstad is a highly deserving recipient.” - Birgitte Sonne, Journalist at Nordjyske

Architecture is never the work of one person alone. These projects have grown through dialogue, trust, craftsmanship and the commitment of many people — clients, collaborators, consultants, builders, local communities and our own team.

We are grateful to everyone who has contributed, and to the Packness Foundation for recognising work rooted in the belief that thoughtful architecture can deepen our relationship with a place.

Reiulf Ramstad Awarded the Nykredit Foundation Architecture Prize 2026.

One of Scandinavia’s most prestigious architecture prizes has been awarded to Reiulf Ramstad, architect MAA and Honorary Fellow of the American Institute of Architects, founder and design director of Reiulf Ramstad Arkitekter.

Presented since 1987, the prize is a significant recognition of architectural quality, cultural importance, and professional depth. It is awarded to architects whose work has made an outstanding contribution to architecture and the built environment. With this year’s award to Reiulf Ramstad, attention is drawn to an architectural body of work that over several decades has given form to the relationship between people, landscape, place, and time.

Ramstad’s architecture does not arise from the arbitrary or the purely formal. It emerges from an encounter with the character of the landscape, with the resistance of topography, with light, materials, and human movement through space. His buildings do not seek to dominate a place, but to make it legible. They create presence. They allow the landscape to come forward as lived experience.

The awarding of the Nykredit Foundation Architecture Prize 2026 therefore marks more than a personal honor. It affirms the significance of an architectural life’s work that has helped renew the language of Nordic architecture. In Ramstad’s work, the Nordic does not appear as a style, but as an attitude: an attentiveness to the landscape, a restraint in means, a respect for the weight of materials, and a search for spatial meaning.

“Architecture, for us, is a way of understanding the world. A building is never merely an object; it is a situation, a transition, a place where people encounter landscape, light, weather, memory, and community. To receive the Nykredit Foundation Architecture Prize is a great honor, and a powerful recognition of the work to which we have devoted ourselves,” says Reiulf Ramstad.

Throughout his career, Ramstad has achieved a distinct international position. At the same time, his architecture has retained a strong grounding in the experiences of the Nordic landscapes: the weight of the mountains, the direction of the valleys, the openness of the coast, the stillness of the forest, and the layered life of the city.

His work demonstrates that the task of architecture is not only to provide space for function, but to give people a sense of foothold. The building becomes an intermediary between earth and sky, between the everyday and the meaningful, between individual life and the larger context of which we are all part.

“We have always worked from the conviction that architecture must be both precise and humane. It must be able to withstand use, time, and weather, but it must also be able to open a sense of wonder. It is in this connection between the necessary and the poetic that architecture finds its deepest meaning,” says Ramstad.

The Nykredit Foundation works to support initiatives in Danish business and industry, particularly within the construction sector, including by highlighting projects that set new architectural and cultural standards. Previous recipients include leading Danish architects such as Jørn Utzon, Henning Larsen, Bjarke Ingels, and Jan Gehl. The award ceremony took place on Thursday 28 May 2026 in Copenhagen.