Snøhetta and Ai Weiwei are WSJ Magazine's Architecture and Art Innovator of the Year 2016

Snøhetta is an architecture, landscape, and interior design studio with offices in Oslo, Norway, and New York City, USA. Founded in 1989, it is led by Craig Dykers and Kjetil Thorsen. The studio, named in honour of Mount Snøhetta, the highest peak in the Dovrefjell mountains of Norway, has approximately 100 collaborators working on large-scale international projects across a wide range of typologies. Their approach is deeply collaborative and transdisciplinary, bringing together architects, designers, engineers, and landscape professionals to explore multiple perspectives depending on the nature of each project.

Snøhetta has completed a series of world-renowned cultural and landmark projects, including the Bibliotheca Alexandrina in Egypt, the Oslo Opera House and Ballet, and the Lillehammer Art Museum in Norway. Current projects include the National Pavilion of the September 11 Memorial Museum at the World Trade Center site in New York, as well as urban and landscape developments that aim to merge local identity, sustainability, and public experience.

In 2004, Snøhetta was awarded the Aga Khan Award for Architecture, and in 2009, the Mies van der Rohe Award. The studio is the only practice to have won the World Architecture Award for Best Cultural Building twice in consecutive years: in 2002 for the Bibliotheca Alexandrina and in 2008 for the Oslo Opera House and Ballet, consolidating its international prestige.

Kjetil Trædal Thorsen (born 1958 on the coastal island of Karmøy, Norway) is a co-founder of the studio and a multiple award-winning architect. He is a visionary and humanist designer who has redefined the boundaries of contemporary practice. Under his leadership, Snøhetta has produced iconic, sustainable structures that are highly sensitive to their cultural context, combining technological innovation with a profound environmental awareness. Thorsen’s work is recognized for its focus on social interaction, sustainability, and the creation of spaces that foster human connection and sensory experience, establishing a benchmark in contemporary global architecture.

Craig Dykers (born 1961 in Frankfurt, Germany) is also a co-founder of the studio and director of its New York office. Snøhetta has earned a reputation for maintaining a deep integration of landscape, architecture, and urban experience across all its projects. Key works include the Bibliotheca Alexandrina in Egypt, the Oslo Opera House and Ballet, the National Pavilion of the September 11 Memorial Museum in New York, and the redesign of Times Square. Professionally and academically active, Dykers has been a member of the Norwegian Association of Architects (NAL), the American Institute of Architects (AIA), and the Royal Society of Arts in England. He has served as a diploma juror at the Architectural College in Oslo and as a distinguished professor at City College, New York. He has delivered numerous lectures across Europe, Asia, and the Americas, and has undertaken public art installation projects, many of which explore the interplay between context, landscape, and human experience.

Ai Weiwei is a chinese conceptual artist, also works as an architect, photographer, curator and globally recognised human rights activist. Born in 1957 in Beijing, he began his training at Beijing Film Academy and later continued at the Parsons School of Design in New York City.

His work has been exhibited around the world with solo exhibitions at Stiftung DKM, Duisburg (2010); Mori Art Museum, Tokyo (2009); Haus der Kunst, Munich (2009); Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation, Cambelltown Arts Center, Sydney (2008); and the Groninger Museum, Groningen (2008), and participation in the 48th Venice Biennale in Italy (1999, 2008, 2010); Guangzhou Triennale in China (2002, 2005), Busan Biennial in Korea (2006), Documenta 12 in Germany (2007), and the 29th Sao Paulo Biennial in Brazil (2010). In October 2010, Ai Weiwei's "Sunflower Seeds" was installed in the Tate Modern Turbine Hall, London. Ai Weiwei participated in the Serpentine Gallery's China Power Station exhibition in 2006, and the Serpentine Gallery Map Marathon in 2010.

The last solo exhibitions included Ai Weiwei in the Chapel, on view at Yorkshire Sculpture Park through November 2, 2014; Evidence at the Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin, 2014; and Ai Weiwei: According to What?, which was organized by the Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, in 2009, and traveled to North American venues in 2013–14. Ai collaborated with architects Herzog & de Meuron on the “bird’s nest” stadium for the 2008 Beijing Olympics and on the Serpentine Gallery, 2012 London. He has been the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including the Václav Havel Prize for Creative Dissent from the Human Rights Foundation in 2012.