death is a scandal, said elias canetti. I wonder if it feels that way at ninety.
time is a scandal.
to utzon's admirers, the real scandal may well be that the great man ended his career so early in life.
after the sydney debacle and within only a few years, utzon produced a line of brilliant and still neglected projects that sought to apply the lessons learnt from his australian experiments in prefabrication and complex geometry. in them, he demonstrated that the site-specific, human, even ecstatic approach of aalto and frank lloyd wright could be realized with the rational tools of industrial production proposed by the bauhaus - the two opposite traditions of modernist architecture reconciled in a single man's work.
all contradictions can be temporarily reconciled with the application of infinite energy - and utzon's energy and invention seemed infinite in these projects.
alas, precious little was built.
the zürich theatre was cancelled only after they had started clearing the ground and picasso and arp had sketched out the art work that was to be integrated with the structure; the school in herning never went beyond the prototype you can still visit; the stage in lebanon shown here fell victim to the civil war; even a museum to his old friend asger jorn was given to another architect after utzon had produced two profoundly original projects, the second one even cheap to build.
I remember coming across an interview with one of the people responsible for the asger jorn museum. he had overheard utzon commenting on one of jorn's wild paintings that he dreamt of working with the same freedom. there was no way we could have given the commission to such an irresponsible man, said the dignitary, they had to give the project to an architect who could deliver in time and on budget.
they couldn't have been more wrong. no one remembers a project for being on time.
when the national assembly in kuwait was cancelled in the late seventies, utzon called it quits and closed down his office. according to people near him, he quoted asplund who had said (and this is possibly apocryphal) that architecture isn't worth dying for when he had worn himself out at only 55.
and when the kuwaitis returned, utzon's oldest son was left in charge with the architect himself acting merely as an advisor. that was the part he played for the rest of his life, an advisor to his two architect sons. helping to give them the successful career he had never had and lending his name to projects that to my mind were not worthy of it.
utzon, the architect's architect, finally placed his family above personal ambition. what is there not to admire about this man.
the photo shows one of utzon's unbuilt post-sydney works,
subterranean theatre, jeita grotto, lebanon 1968.
architect: jørn utzon, 1918-2008.
this steel structure was intended as an underground stage, inserted into the jeita caves in lebanon. the civil war put an end to it. some of you may recognize the interior of calatrava's recent auditorio de tenerife, reminding us that in a strange way utzon's time is now - even if his many unbuilt ideas will be realized by other architects.
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more utzon here and here
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link to full size image.
paper factory proposal, unbuilt. morocco 1947.
architect: jørn utzon (1918-2008)
the forties were utzon's formative years, away from denmark and away from the creative constraints of the traditionalist royal academy. little is published, but we know the main dates. from 1942 to 1945 utzon waited out the german occupation of denmark in neutral sweden. many other danish architects did the same, some to escape the unemployment of the occupied territories, others - like jewish arne jacobsen and communist poul henningsen - to escape nazi persecution and death.
from his friend tobias faber we know what they studied in stockholm and of their discovery of chinese culture through sinologist osvald sirén. whether utzon learnt of stepped gables and floating roofs then and there or simply found confirmation of what he was already dreaming up is perhaps less important. he was soon to find modern form for these.
utzon worked briefly for alvar aalto after the liberation. in this context, I should mention aalto's great paper mills in finland, famous projects at the time for bringing together a modern architect and actual industrial structures, a much rarer occurrence than architectural history would have you think. the moroccan factory above bears no resemblance to aalto's much bigger buildings except, surprisingly, for a single block of flats aalto designed in connection with one of his mills, the porrastalo from 1938. aalto's influence is present in every utzon project from this point on in his career, but often in unexpected ways.
in 1947, utzon travelled to north africa. it was his first meeting with the islamic world. his self-proclaimed interest was in indigenous architecture, and he later stated that the unity of wall and ground, standing as if in one material, had made the greatest impression on him. I imagine it helped him reconcile with the klint/fisker tradition he had been trying to free himself from, but which provided some of the same qualities, as he was to demonstrate in his own house in 1952. merging tradition and modernity would become utzon's particular gift, even if he insisted that he - like his artist friends - could learn from any authentic tradition around the world, and combine them too.
he produced at least two sketch proposals for buildings in morocco in connection with his stay, a housing scheme and a paper factory. both remain unbuilt. I made this simple model of the factory to get a better look than his two published drawings, a plan and a longitudinal section, offer - and to show it to you, of course! it was intended for an unknown hillside location and - as the beautiful and somewhat abstract diagram suggests - was designed to use gravity to drive part of its production line.
we have been going back in time from bagsværd church (1967-1976), through bank melli (1959-1962) to the villa bille (1955) - three related buildings displaying utzon's recurring theme of parallel walls and expressive sections. here we have finally arrived at his first attempt. and what walls, one might add, what section.
in fact, nothing in utzon's previous production would have prepared you for the sheer power of those factory walls. in more analytical strains of modernism there was always a tendency to simplify the individual parts of a building as they were drawn apart to clarify their relationship; the column became a cylinder, the roof a simple concrete slab, and the wall freestanding. utzon's analytical clarity matched that of any architect of his age, only he would articulate each part separately and as far as the unity of the whole would allow.
his use of allusion was at odds with the abstraction of so much of modernism, but close in spirit to what le corbusier was doing. utzon's allusions are historical, but they are also autobiographical in that they seem to register his own travels and encounters with other architects in built form. isn't that the towering silhouette of aït ben haddou right there? doesn't this make you think of the quiet strength and dignity of the uqba mosque in kairouan?
utzon only got away with such allusion because of the formal and structural integrity of each of his designs - you simply did not need to see it to appreciate the quality of what was being offered - though I suspect that it provided that particular attraction in a work of art which is the feeling that further study will be rewarded; the thinking man's definition of beauty, perhaps.
of course, critics and architects of a more rationalist approach insisted that utzon never really got away with anything. to them, the striking primitivism of the monumental buttresses would have been an indulgence on the part of the architect: steel could have solved that without the drama. one italian historian dismissed utzon entirely in his book on modern architecture, suggesting the reader might benefit from studying rotterdam's postwar reconstruction instead. had he ever been to rotterdam, I wonder.
the corrugated concrete roof is more utilitarian, though still with an expressive structural principle. vilhelm lauritzen's copenhagen airport, just eight years old at the time, gives us an idea of what the ceiling would have looked like. what the same principle would become at the end of utzon's active career in a church outside copenhagen is well known.
there is a deceptive ease with which a thought is arrived at for the second time, which allows us to forget the effort that was put into its first occurrence. the moroccan paper factory was a true breakthrough - utzon's distinct voice as an architect is there for the first time, and there is not a false note to it.
it was to take utzon five years to produce a work of similar importance. in 1948 and 1949, he travelled to the states and to mexico, meeting mies, wright, saarinen and eames on the way - enough to stop an experienced architect in his tracks. in 1952, utzon completed his own house in which the american masters were alluded to without challenging the integrity of design. it would change the history of the danish single family house, but that is another story for another time.
more utzon here
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prototype of school centre, herning, denmark 1968-1970.
architect: jørn utzon, 1918-2008.
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this is a teacher's residence in a big school project of which only this prototype exists. sadly, the house has since been added to by utzon's oldest son, jan, who is also responsible for the new work in sydney.
utzon's extraordinary generosity in turning his office into a family company has been repaid by his two sons with a troubling use of the famous name in connection with speculative projects and a meddling with the old masterpieces that will one day have to be untangled by art historians.
it is all very disturbing to his admirers but as always, you cannot fault utzon's values when late in his career he chose his family above the protection and promotion of his own name and work.
picture taken about 5 years ago with disposable camera by good friend and rather brilliant architect rune hansen. with the house disfigured today, an old photo becomes a document:
this particular view of the great skylight sitting right on the edge of the concrete enclosure is lost with the new extension.
more utzon here and here
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first stage of school centre, herning, denmark 1968-1970.
model from from the 2008 utzon exhibition in palazzo franchetti, venice.
architect: jørn utzon, 1918-2008.
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utzon's herning school, an export school for the then thriving textile industry, is one project we must have a closer look at after going through bagsværd church. they both belong to the architect's post-sydney career which yielded so many exceptional projects and so little built work. and they share an important trait:
while utzon's trademark, expressive roofs are still there, the monumental platforms and plateaus are gone from both herning and bagsværd and the counterpoint to the roofshapes is simply the flat Danish landscape.
there is an equally significant difference. the church, a monument, was cast in concrete, while the school, a utilitarian structure intended for perpetual change, was to be built from cheap, light-weight materials. utzon could do both, a fact somewhat obscured by the problems in sydney.
the inherent modesty of utzon's later works has been lost on the kind of architectural writers who like to say 'semperian earthworks' for foundation and herning remains a neglected project in writing, despite the fact that - unlike his other cancelled projects - a prototype was built.
here and here are my reactions from my first visit, back when this little house was all but forgotten.
the project has also been referred to as a school town and is probably best understood as the successful translation of utzon's personal urban ideal at the time, the islamic cities of iran and north africa, in which domes of varying sizes were combined with great freedom to form any urban ensemble needed. the courtyards-within-courtyards shown in the model support that the inspiration was eastern, but would have made perfect sense in flat and windy herning regardless.
utzon called it additive architecture and brought with that term the idea of continuous growth from traditional architecture into the world of prefabricated modern building. other architects tried the same at the time, but while most open-ended systems looked equally awful at all stages of construction, utzon's prototype more than suggested that would not have been the case in herning.
more utzon here.
other post-sydney projects here and here.
more words, yada, yada, yada.
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jørn utzon turns ninety today and the Danish press abounds with misinformation about this elusive master of architecture.
"the utzon center" in aalborg, denmark, opens today. designed by utzon with the help of his sons, claim the newspapers. impressive news considering his failing eyesight, not to mention the fact that utzon closed down his office when the production of construction drawings for kuwait national assembly moved to max walt's office in zürich in the mid 1970's.
the utzon center in aalborg is designed by kim utzon, his youngest son, who is also the architect behind another utzon news story today: "jørn utzon designs 22 single family houses in skagen". no, he doesn't. the son does. inspired by his father, no doubt, but a novel inspired by stendhal is not a novel by stendhal. it really is that simple.
another misunderstanding from today, and I quote: "today the opera is being restored following the original drawings". sadly it isn't. it is being restored to designs by jan utzon. his design abilities can be studied here: Las Pulgas
increasingly, I am reminded of the actions of nietzsche's sister and mother after he fell ill.
but members of his family are not the only ones to fail utzon's legacy. today saw the publication of a 260 page book dealing only with his design for the national assembly in kuwait. I left work early to secure a copy for myself. the parliament building has been published extensively already but the three different designs for a mosque that utzon did in connection with it have received little coverage. sadly, the new book is no different.
seen in connection with the fact that a recent book on the church in bagsværd did not include a particular sectional sketch in which the vaults can be seen as a piece of stylized arabic calligraphy, and the fact that richard weston's huge book on utzon dismisses his great design for farum town centre as being too islamic, I can only see this as a sign of today's islamophobia. utzon himself never displayed such sentiments and indeed his work cannot be understood without the east.
in 1948, utzon wrote: "different types of nature arise from the same seeds under different conditions. the conditions in our times are completely different from those that existed before, but the essence of architecture, the seed, is the same".
this belief, that the fundamentals of architecture are the same regardless of culture and age, meant that utzon could learn equally from ancient iranian masters and from modern engineering. ultimately, it means that cultures can learn from each other, that we are not separate but that we share values and experiences intrinsic to being human. in todays political climate, that amounts to optimism. utzon's architecture, said sverre fehn, is world-architecture. I return to it for the comfort of wisdom in an age where exchange between the cultures seems reduced to insult, trade or bullets.
the photo shows an original utzon design:
middelboe house, holte, denmark.
architect jorn utzon, 1953-1955.
photographer is my good colleague christoffer pilgaard.
more utzon here and here
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