Johansen Skovsted Arkitekter: On Jørn Utzon

Meet the young Danish architect duo, Søren Johansen and Sebastian Skovsted, who together form Johansen Skovsted Arkitekter. They here talk about their extolled colleague Jørn Utzon (b. ), whose architecture they feel reflects something existential: “It’s admirable that it’s not just about the location in relation to its surroundings, but also the location in a larger context. We’re on Earth underneath the sun, the moon and the stars.” Johansen and Skovsted argue that Utzon’s love of primordial destinations and travelling ensured that he didn’t have a Eurocentric view on architecture. Also, he learned a lot about people’s universal need to place themselves in a certain relation to the landscape, which is reflected in the way his buildings recurrently are in relation to the horizon. Utzon studied Chinese pagodas, Egyptian pyramids and Indian temples as well as anonymous, basic necessary structures, “architecture without architects”, such as mills. Moreover, this understanding of peo