A Great Danish Designer – Video Series by VOLA (Jørn Utzon)

As part of VOLA’s series of short films focused on architecture and design, ‘A Great Danish Designer’ focuses on the work of Jørn Utzon as a prominent contributor to the modernist movement. The Utzon Design Centre Creative Director Lasse Andersson discusses the architect’s process, philosophies and influences through three renowned works – the Sydney Opera House, Ahm House and Can Lis.

Ingrained in the elements of daily life in Denmark, design is embodied and immersive and VOLA’s series of short films aims to shine the light on architecture and design, highlighting and concentrating these iconic design influences. Utzon’s enduring and highly contemplative work shows a dedicated rigor. A thinker before this time, he was continually experimenting with materiality, light and form and trying to bring a level of rational to the heighted experience of architecture. Lasse says, “Jørn Utzon’s design was on the edge of what was possible. He was so determined when he was creating his architecture, to do the best, combining vision and fantasy, with the rational and the buildable. That’s why we have architecture like we have today.” In conceiving and designing the Sydney Opera House and its complex intersecting forms, his process was to break down the mass into smaller, more relatable and approachable realties. Lasse continues, “his understanding of complex forms and geometries was expressed by using simple forms to engage with his colleagues and his family about what he wanted from architecture.”

Ingrained in the elements of daily life in Denmark, design is embodied and immersive and VOLA’s series of short films aims to shine the light on architecture and design, highlighting and concentrating these iconic design influences.

Through close collaboration with fellow-Dane (structural engineer for the Sydney Opera House) Povl Ahm, a close and trusted relationship was born. The Ahm House was the product of that collaboration and is located in Hertfordshire, England. In describing the home, Lasse says, “the Ahm House is the first house where he works with concrete and is the first modern house in the 20th century. It has the delight and openness of the modern house plan. You have the brickwork and the wooden ceilings and, on the floor, the files from the Sydney Opera house.” The use of materiality was born from a place of fascination and connection to nature, Lasse says. “[Utzon] said his laboratory was the forest, and the clouds. When he looked at nature, he saw complexity, but he also saw rationality and that’s what he translated into his own architecture.”

In conceiving and designing the Sydney Opera House and its complex intersecting forms, his process was to break down the mass into smaller, more relatable and approachable realties.

Influenced by his environment, nature and a passion for travel combined in the creation of Can Lis in Majorca, which Utzon designed and built for his wife. Almost primitive, the emboldened and monolithic forms have a robustness that expresses its construction. Describing Utzon’s influences, Lasse says, “he travelled around the world to find the seeds of all architecture and to a large extent, Can Lis and his family chose everything Utzon worked with in his career.” He adds, “you see northern African architecture, Japanese architecture and Danish architecture when entering Can Lis. You also feel like you are in an ancient ruin, but it is modern in simplicity at the same time. When he formed architecture out of concrete, it was about giving new possibilities and constructions. And when he worked with bricks, it’s about using local materials. Can Lis is built out of the most simple materials, ones that you make agricultural buildings out of. Which again feels so right in the place it is situated.”

Through a constant searching for meaning and inspiration, Utzon was also collating aspects from his environments. “He understood what was important in architecture,” Lasse says. “I think it’s his sensibility and the essence of living key experiences in architecture. He focused on the experience of one human being, one place and that is what makes Utzon so different from his peers.” Notably iconic and continuing as the architectural feats highlighted in the VOLA video series, Utzon’s lessons on connection and immersion in our environments endure as his lasting legacy.

Notably iconic and continuing as the architectural feats highlighted in the VOLA video series, Utzon’s lessons on connection and immersion in our environments endure as his lasting legacy.

“His understanding of complex forms and geometries was expressed by using simple forms to engage with his colleagues and his family about what he wanted from architecture.”