The exhibition was curated in collaboration with Aarhus School of Architecture, based on the project ‘Escandinavia – Architectural Dialogues between Denmark and Spain’. A story between 11 proposals about Nordic Modernism and architecture seen through Spanish eyes.
Can Lis, Jørn Utzon’s own house in Majorca was one particular source of inspiration for Spanish architects.
Project description by Luis Martínez Santa-María
Sketch. «A strange courage» by Luis Martínez Santa-María.
A strange bravery
The movement that the 28 brick pillars have in their extreme part is due to light. The pillars are shaken by the light that comes from above, from the skylights of the Utzon Center open to the sky of Aalborg. This is how they respond to the place in which they have been built. Accepting and defying gravity, they ascend to meet the light, little by little, centimeter by centimeter, through cautious but passionate successive approximations. But I would like to allude, seeing the open attitude of these pillars, to the analogy that they inevitably produce: because we are also moved by the light: that of the sun and the moon, the light that is found in the sea, or in the leaves. of the trees, or the one that is guessed in the secret depth of the Greek marbles, or the one that shines in some people…. A light that also transforms us and that, in the words of the American poet Wallace Stevens, gives us a strange courage. Northern architects always admired southern light. They demonstrated it with their writings, with their travels, with their references, with some relevant data that appear in their biographies. And I think, in saying this, of Arne Jacobsen, Jorn Utzon, Alvar Aalto, Sigurd Lewerentz, Ragnar Östberg, Eric Gunnar Asplund, Sverre Fehn, and so many other admirable architects. But, making the trip in the opposite direction, this is the moment to recognize the important influence that the light of all these architects has had on us. A strange courage that has served us so many times as an example and that, with these 28 brick pillars, we would like to represent.
