Utzon: The defining light of the Third Generation

In Space, Time, and Architecture, Sigfried Giedion identified Jørn Utzon as one of the proponents and leaders of what Giedion regarded as the Third Generation of modern architecture in the 20th century. This article considers how Utzon subsequently further exemplified in later works the principles Giedion had identified as essential to that Third Generation and discusses, as Giedion did not explicitly, the significance of light in Utzon’s architecture, which plays a key role in underpinning and articulating these defining principles. This article addresses how the principles Giedion attributed to Utzon and his defining consideration of light, derived from his interpretations of his many transcultural sources of inspiration, notably including from, China, Iran, Japan, Hawaii, Mexico, and Morocco, as well as from his own Nordic realm and Europe, as can be seen in the Sydney Opera House, Can Lis in Mallorca, Melli Bank in Tehran, Kuwait National Assembly, and Bagsværd Church in Denmark, among others.

Today, a hundred years after his birth in 1918, Jørn Utzon is more fully recognised as one of the most original and uniquely outstanding architects of the 20 th century, despite what was a relatively limited architectural production of built works.Prior to being catapulted to international recognition, with his wining of the Sydney Opera House competition, Utzon was already gaining a reputation in his native Denmark on the basis of his many notable, but unrealised competition entries and the realisation of the Kingo Houses  and the Fredensborg Houses  courtyard housing north of Copenhagen.
With built works, restrained by unfortunate circumstances and the unjust damage to his reputation in the immediate aftermath of the Sydney Opera House debacle, Utzon's oeuvre nevertheless comprises a wide range of notable works.
From his modest, yet noble and humane courtyard housing, through unrealized visionary projects, that still today in an age of computer aided design, capture the imagination, such as the subterranean Silkeborg Art Museum proposal (1963).
To powerfully poetic public buildings, such as the Bagsvaerd Church (1968-76), with its lyrical billowing concrete ceilings evoking clouds, the Kuwait National Assembly building , a particularly successful evocation by a Western architect, of the architecture of the region and quite possibly, the most iconic and internationally recognized building of the 20 th Century, the Sydney Opera House .However, the fullest acknowledgement of Utzon's contribution to modern In identifying Utzon as the defining proponent and leader of what he saw as the new Third Generation of modern architecture in the 20 th century, he defined the attributes that he ascribed to that Third Generation, largely in accordance with the themes he identifies within Utzon's work.These notably include a more profound social concern, in that "The social orientation is pushed further: a more conscious regard for the anonymous client" 1 .Certainly Utzon, had a well-developed sense of social concern and respect for the individual within society.Having grown up in an enlightened and progressive social environment in Denmark, informed by such influential figures as N.F.S. Grundtvig, that celebrated the rights of every ordinary individual, but within a well-functioning collective community.
Utzon's work does indeed reflect an exemplary continuation of the wider Nordic tradition, both within architecture and society more broadly, that emphasises social well-being, collective community and an essentially egalitarian society.This social concern, can be seen early in Utzon's career, as with Aalto and other Nordic architects, in a concerned interest in providing immediate housing solutions to the considerable numbers of refugees, displaced as a consequence of the Second World War and later in providing, affordable collective housing, that resulted in Even in Utzon's larger, more monumental public works, the concern for the experience of the individual and the wider community, is always paramount and underpins the design.Though the Sydney Opera House has become the ultimate exemplar of an iconic building as visual landmark, that has inspired countless attempts since to emulate its singular visual success, its design evolved initially on the basis of the human experience of using the building, rather than its visual appearance.It was Utzon's underlying intention that the great stairs of the podium would provide an almost sacred sense of rising above the everyday humdrum and provide a grand panorama of the magnificent Sydney harbour2 , before entering the dramatic cavernous interiors, suitably distanced from one's daily life and sublimely prepared for the cultural experience to come3 .Utzon's organic approach to architecture, with its source in Utzon's fascination with nature as an inspiration and influences from Aalto, Gaudi and Wright, was in keeping with Giedion's incorporation of changing conditions as a positive element of the site", as well as strong relation to the site and context, "so that an interplay can arise between architecture and environment, each intensifying the other"4 .
It was Utzon's vision, that so profoundly among the competitors for the Sydney Opera House, recognised just how this unique site needed to be considered in relation to it surrounding landscape.Despite having not visited Australia, prior to making his competition submission, but on the basis of photographs and his reading of topographic maps of the harbour, Utzon could appreciate the particular morphology of the Sydney harbour basin, with its distinctive headlands, and in a manner akin to Aalto's notions of architecture as built landscape, sought to emulate that characteristic landform, as the podium of the Sydney Opera House [fig.2].
In particular reference to Utzon, Giedion talks of "an emphasis upon the architectural use of the horizontal planes and different levels.More forceful use of artificial platforms as urbanistic elements" 5 The use of platforms and plateaus, was a distinctive and recurring theme in much of Utzon's architecture.During his travels in Mexico in 1949, his experience of the Pre-Columbian, temple ruins he visited in Monte Albán, Uxmal and Chichen Itza, with their great stone platforms, that one ascended to by means of monumental stairs, made a lasting impression upon Utzon; inspiring, as emphasised by Giedion 6 , what was to become a defining element subsequently, particularly in Utzon's civic projects.
Giedion attributed other particular characteristic approaches of Utzon, to all of the new Third Generation, suggesting they had "A stronger relation to the past; not expressed in forms, but in the sense of an inner relationship and a desire for continuity" 7 .Utzon and other Nordic architects, that followed Aalto, stood apart from the mainstream of modern architecture and the conformity to the rigid functionalism of the International Style, that Giedion in promoting Utzon, was actively railing against.As Colin St John Wilson has later proposed, Aalto was the pioneer of what he defines as "the other tradition of modern architecture" 8 .A more humane, poetic modern architecture that is informed and moderated by a continuing appreciation of vernacular tradition, materiality and nature, that Utzon continued and developed further.Furthermore, Giedion also credited Utzon with "further strengthening of sculptural tendencies in architecture.A freer relationship between the inner and outer space and between volumes in space" 9 .While, in the fraught course of actually being able to construct the roof shells of the Sydney Opera House, Utzon moved away from the more expressively sculptural parabolic forms of the competition submission and resolved the construction by means of more simple, spherical geometry [fig.3].In the process, through this abstraction of the forms, further strengthening and ensuring the tectonic integrity and enduring iconic status of the building 10 .Unfortunately, Utzon was not permitted to bring the same degree of resolution to the interiors, where he had proposed a complete break with the prevailing dogma of the time, that the inner form should conform to the outer form of the building.Utzon's intentions, as Giedion appreciated, broke with this principle and proposed that the halls, should be articulated as independent structures within the interior and faceted according to acoustic principles, in sharp contrast to the smooth surfaces of the roof shells.Utzon, as so often, explaining his solution by means of an analogy in nature; comparing his design proposals to the exterior and interior character of a walnut 11 .
architecture, came only in the last years of Utzon's life, with the awarding of the prestigious Pritzker Architecture Prize in 2003 and in his own homeland, with the long overdue awarding in 2006 of the Danish Architects Association's Medal of Honour, just two years prior to his death in 2008, at the age of 90.Jørn Utzon was given early recognition by the noted Swiss architectural historian, Sigfried Giedion, as the leading figure within what he determined to be a new Third Generation of modern architects, in the 20 th Century.Somewhat daringly, given the controversial nature of the Sydney Opera House, but with some visionary foresight, Giedion dedicated an entirely new chapter to Utzon; in his amended fifth edition of Space, Time and Architecture.The Growth of a New Tradition, as republished in 1967.
the highly successful Kingo and Fredensborg courtyard housing developments, that in turn were to inspire a younger generation of Danish architects and initiate, subsequent developments in Danish collective and co-housing [fig.1].defining light of the Third Generation Utzon: La luz definidora de la Tercera Generación 90

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luz definidora de la Tercera Generación 92 While Giedion did not address Utzon's underlying consideration of light, as an intrinsic quality of his architecture, as will be discussed in more depth later, Giedion did identify many of the most salient themes in Utzon's work and his insights have underpinned subsequent critical discussion of Utzon since, by others.Christian Norberg-Schulz, a student of Giedion and a personal friend of Utzon, expanded further upon Giedion's understanding of place in relation to Utzon, in his seminal publication Genius Loci: Towards a Phenomenology ofArchitecture (1979), and continued to expand upon a phenomenological understanding of architecture, with reference to Utzon, in subsequent writings.While, Kenneth Frampton has promoted an understanding of the significance of Utzon's work as being exemplary within the context of critical regionalism and more recently in terms of a tectonic approach to architecture.However, little has been written about how the poetic narratives of Utzon's architecture, his focus on tectonic integrity and authentic materiality is complemented by his profound appreciation of how these aspects of his architecture, are so effectively brought to life by the careful interplay of light.Perhaps in part due to his own sensitivity to strong direct sunlight, but also most significantly through the influence of Alvar Aalto, there is within Utzon's architecture, a strongly recurring motif of bringing light indirectly into his buildings through deep apertures and most distinctly from above, by means of well-articulated skylights and reflective structural elements.In Utzon's own home on Mallorca, Can Lis, the actual thickness of the sandstone walls, is further accentuated in the window bays by means of angled deep reveals, that serve to dramatically frame the Rothko-like views of the Mediterranean and sky, beyond the cliff edge on which the house is perched [fig.4].The abstract quality of the views being enhanced by the absence of window frames, that are applied externally, in a manner inspired by the work of the Swedish architect Sigurd Lewerentz, who like Utzon had also such a poetic sense of materiality and light 12 .The interplay of light and sculptural form Similarly, to Aalto, Utzon examined skylights in many projects as a method of allowing diffused, natural light to enter the interior.This can be regarded as a reference to the aforementioned continuity in relation to the past, although not specifically addressed by Giedion, when interpreted in the light -literally -of luz definidora de la Tercera Generación 94 On the dense urban site of the Melli Bank, a logical solution was to provide illumination from above, but it also is reminiscent of the bazaars and mosques Utzon visited in Iran and was particularly inspired by in Isfahan [fig.5].One approaches it from an entry plaza and a platform on a monumental staircase, which Utzon created by a setback from the façade line of the neighbouring buildings and separated from the busy street by a row of trees [fig.6].(The monumentality of the staircase has now been compromised by a ramp, but the trees are still there, though grown so big that it is hard to see the building.)The first spatial sequence inside is compressed under the two administrative floors above the entry, after which the three-story high banking hall on a four steps lower level opens as a dramatic contrast.The skylights between several parallel, post-tensioned concrete beams create an almost rhythmical pulse of musical notations in the high ceiling -or the Bank's name in the flow of its Arabic script, as Weston among others has suggested -crossing the 20 metres free span of the bank hall between the flank walls on both sides, clad with lines of travertine 13 [fig.7].These walls protrude to the sidewalk and include the "servant spaces", to use Kahn's terminology, such as offices and other utilitarian rooms.According to Weston, "Utzon designed the hall as a 'landscape' of desks and small cubicles, inspired by the interview spaces of Aalto's Pensions Institute" 14 .He continues pointing out that the play of shade and light was, of course, not new, referring to Frank Lloyd Wright's Johnson Wax Building besides Aalto's art gallery project in Baghdad, but also states that "the top-lighting was inspired by the Isfahan bazaar", while the light enters "through narrow slits of glazing between the beams and then [is] reflected off the deep V-shaped throughs […] like 'light through clouds'", as the project architect Munk Hansen recalled Utzon's concept 15 [fig.8].The influence of Islamic architecture with repetitive units illuminated from above is even more clearly apparent in Utzon's competition entry for the Farum Town Centre in 1966 with his trademark additive architecture and skylights in the vault-covered mall.Weston, who states that "The Islamic inspiration in Farum is almost too obvious to need comment", nevertheless emphasises that Utzon used the word bazaar in his descriptions of the design 16 .Likewise, in Utzon's Kuwait National Assembly (1971-84), the skylights are in a significant role, in addition to the tectonics of the thin, almost fabric-like, post-tensioned concrete shells, which are reminiscent of the Arab Bedouin tents [fig.9].