UPDATE:  Lars Fischer from the Danish+American design firm Arting contacted me.  He writes: “Although the award put a big smile on my face it is not a laminate materiale but a cheap wood chip/concrete sheet material from AMROC.”  Thanks Lars for updating me.  It was a terrific booth…good job!

Austrian company ProLicht took me by complete surprise.  I had honestly never even heard of ProLicht before, but their booth was a tour de force of the architectural zeitgeist.  The booth might as well have been designed by Daniel Libeskind, a beautiful composition of angled surfaces with discrete cuts and openings.  It is difficult to see in the picture, but the exterior was finished with a black stained wood veneer.  In plan, the booth was a simple circular corridor, infilled in the center by a stylish VIP lounge.  The product displays were superbly clustered and arranged throughout the corridor.

ProLicht also wins the unofficial Lucept Award for “Sexiest Use of Cheap Formica Countertop EVER“.  In the back of the circular corridor, there was a gorgeous wall of low cost laminate/particle board panels, but beautifully roughed up with a belt sander and carefully mounted with nice joint spacing between the panels.  Even from a few feet away, the wall looked like an artfully finished concrete or stone panel system.  I’ll file this alongside Marset’s stylish use of plain particle board.  Nice to see some creativity in booth materials!

Inside the glowing white corridor was the VIP lounge, a complete contrast with black painted ceiling, rough finished wood walls, grey felts, black lacquer, and copper painted fixtures.  Très chic!

Also, in the VIP lounge I noticed that ProLicht was showing small clusters of downlights, a trend I noticed last year in the Flos booth at Euroluce.  Looks nice; definitely a result of LED technology.