About
Ilkka Suppanen (b.1968 Finland) is a designer from Finland working with lightness. Suppanen studied architecture at the Technical University of Helsinki, Interior and Furniture Design at the University of Art and Design Helsinki, with one year at Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam. After graduation, he founded Studio Suppanen (1995) in Helsinki. Suppanen was also one of the founding members of Snowcrash (1997), the groundbreaking design cooperative widely recognised as the reinventors of Scandinavian design. The following year, Suppanen designed the now iconic Flying Carpet Divan (1998) for Cappellini.
Driven by the desire to improve the world around us, Studio Suppanen works with international clients in the fields of product, industrial, furniture design, and interior architecture. The studio also provides consultation for clients who want to make a transition to a more sustainable reality. Through a co-creative process, the company or organization is encouraged to challenge their assumptions about their values in relation to a rapidly changing environment. Collaborations range from developing radical concepts for the automobile industry to social projects for the casteless in India and the homeless in Sao Paulo.
Ilkka Suppanen has continuously combined his practice with theoretical work, and frequently gives lectures and runs courses for institutions such as the Polytechnic University of Milan and the Estonian Art Academy. This way of working contributes to a knowledge-based ecosystem, where insights on design are given back to a new generation, and new perspectives are received in return.
Suppanen’s longstanding interest in the glass material has led to many collaborations with traditional craftsmen in Murano, Venezia and resulted in the creation of unique glass pieces that are represented through galleries around the world.
The studio’s work has received numerous international design awards, been exhibited worldwide at institutions such as the Venice Architecture Biennale and MoMA in New York, and is included in the permanent collections of museums such as Centre Pompidou in Paris and Nationalmuseum in Stockholm. For his contribution to the Scandinavian design scene, Ilkka Suppanen has been awarded two of the largest Nordic design awards; the Torsten and Wanja Söderberg Prize (2015), and The Kaj Franck Design Prize (2020).
"I believe that design is basically the act of changing existing situations into preferred ones."
/ Ilkka Suppanen
Exhibitions
2024 Bruno 35 + Mathsson Prize Winners -exhibition. Sven-Harrys Konstmuseum, Sweden
2024 Universo Satellite -exhibition -Triennale Milano, Italy
2019 Points of View, Solo Exhibition, Gallerie Forsblom, Finland
2017 Solo exhibition Gallerie Maria Wettergren, Paris, France
2017 Solo Exhbition Maison Louis Carré, France
2016 Solo Exhibition in Design Museum Helsinki Finland
2015 Solo Exhibition in Röhska Museum in Gothenburg Sweden
2013 Èclat, solo exhibition Gallerie Maria Wettergren, Paris, France
2012 Broken, Solo Exhibition, Gallerie Forsblom, Finland
2010 Hirameki Exhibition, Tokyo, Japan
2008 Hardcore exhibition, New York, U.S.A
2006 Ilkka Suppanen + Harri Koskinen exhibition, Design Museum of Finland
2005-2007 SAUMA, Washington DC, New York City, Los Angeles, USA
2003 The Q exhibition – Tokyo Japan
2001 Work spheres, MoMA, NYC, U.S.A
2000 Hothouse, Kortrijk, Belgium
1998 Modern Finnish Design, Bard Graduate ctr. NYC, U.S.A.
1997 Snowcrash exhibition Milan, Italy
1992 The Fifth International Exhibition of Architecture, The Venice Biennale, Venezia, Italy
Awards
2024 The Ulrica Hydman Vallien Foundation
2020 The Kaj Franck Design Prize
2019 Adi Index award, Milano, Italy
2018 Good design award, Chicago, U.S.A
2017 Good design award, Chicago, U.S.A
2015 Söderberg prize, Gothenburg Sweden
2015 Finnish Cultural Foundation prize, for crossing the borders in design, Finland
2015 Ilmari Tapiovaara prize, Helsinki Finland
2013 Interior Innovation Award in at IMM Cologne, Germany
2012 Red Dot, Best of the Best award, Germany
2008 Good design award, Chicago, U.S.A
2008 Fennia Prize, Finland
2006 Mathsson-Prize, Mathsson Foundation, Sweden
2001 Avotakka award, Finland
2001 Young Designer of the Year prize, with Harri Koskinen, Finland
1998 Nominee of the Dedalus Prize, nominated by Ettore Sottsass, Italy
1998 Young Designer of the Year, Germany, Architektur & Wohnen-prize, awarded by Ingo Maurer
1998 Finnish National Award for Young Art, Finland
1995 Habitare Prize, 1st Prize at student competition, Alessandro Mendini as jury
Academic
Ilkka Suppanen is an experienced educator and designer with a longstanding international career in design and innovation. Since 2019, he has been teaching the course Innovation Studio in the Master’s Degree program in Product Service System Design at Politecnico di Milano’s School of Design.
From 1996 to 2004, he taught at the University of Art and Design in Helsinki (Aalto University, School of Arts, Design and Architecture nowadays), and has since held numerous teaching roles globally. He has lectured and led workshops at prestigious institutions including Harvard University's Graduate School of Design, the University of São Paulo, Berlin University of the Arts, and Tongji University in Shanghai. He has also contributed to PhD education as Course Director at the University of São Paulo and through workshops at Politecnico di Milano. In 2014, he held a workshop at the Politecnico di Milano's School of Design, and in 2015 and 2016 he led a workshop at the Scuola Politecnica di Design (SPD) in Milan. From 2015 onwards, Suppanen is serving as Director of the Furniture Design course at the Estonian Academy of Arts.
In addition to his teaching, Suppanen has actively contributed to the academic and design communities through advisory and leadership roles. He was a member of the advisory board of the International Aino and Alvar Aalto Design Colloquium 2019, and served on the advisory board of Helsinki Design Week from 2015 to 2018. He was Chairman of the 5th International Alvar Aalto Design Seminar, It’s a Beautiful Day! in 2007, and served as a board member for the 4th International Alvar Aalto Design Seminar in 2004, both held in Jyväskylä, Finland.
Snowcrash
llkka Suppanen was one of the founding members of Snowcrash and served as the company’s design director from 1999 to 2002. Snowcrash became one of the most visionary and talked-about design initiatives of its time — a phenomenon that challenged the very idea of what “Scandinavian design” could be.
At the turn of the millennium, a quiet revolution was stirring in the Nordic design world. In the late 1990s, as Finland and Sweden emerged from a deep recession to become global technology leaders – with Nokia and Ericsson at the forefront of mobile communications – a new generation of designers responded to the changing times. They were curious, bold, and deeply aware that society was shifting toward a digital future.
In 1997, a group of Finnish architects and designers launched Snowcrash as an exhibition during Milan Design Week. Their work was anything but conventional. It broke away from the familiar hallmarks of Nordic design – calm minimalism, natural woods, muted tones – and instead embraced new technologies, provocative forms, and speculative concepts. Domus magazine described it as “like acid snow on the calm commercial world of the official fair.”
The success of the Milan debut quickly evolved into something larger. In 1998, Snowcrash was acquired by Sweden’s Proventus Design – the same group behind Artek and Kinnasand – and transformed into a full-scale design company based in Stockholm. Suppanen, now design director, helped shape a platform exploring what design could mean in the age of digitization.
Snowcrash’s output during those years was radical: experiments in electronic hardware and software, hybrid materials, and furniture concepts that reflected emerging lifestyles shaped by mobile work, virtual networks, and flexible living. It was speculative, optimistic, and ahead of its time. Yet despite its media acclaim and cultural impact, Snowcrash lasted only a few years. By 2002, it was quietly put on hold.
Snowcrash re-emerges not just as a company or a collection of objects, but as a phenomenon – one that expanded the boundaries of Scandinavian design and captured a unique moment when the digital age was just beginning to shape the physical world.
Lightness
This book is a study of the element of lightness, a theme which is reflected throughout the work of Finnish designer Ilkka Suppanen. Beyond presenting Suppanen’s varied design work throughout his career, the publication dives deep into the theme of lightness itself, offering a comprehensive and profound perspective. The concept of lightness is explored in numerous contexts, showcasing its influence on material and architectural choices, philosophical considerations and aesthetic behaviors. The book is divided into eight distinct topics, each one containing a text by a contributor with unique knowledge, thus offering a range of fascinating perspectives. At the same time, Lightness serves as a visual essay by Suppanen, showcasing the poetry of lightness as it is manifested in different cultures, contexts and scales globally. Lars Müller Publishers
