Primitive yet powerful architecture

Morocco is truly something special. The mountain landscapes and its rich cultural history. Back in the 1940ies J?rn Utzon intended to work on a project but wound up inspired by the Moroccan people and the beautiful nature in Northern Africa. To find out why this country was so special to Utzon, I, Flemming Bo, went to northern Morocco again to walk in Utzon’s footsteps and try to understand why the primitive architecture fascinated him so much.

The year is 1948 and Utzon has been invited to Casablanca, Morocco for a job. One of his painter friends - Poul Schr?der - was the brother-in-law of a wealthy man who had a project for Utzon. However, things changed upon arrival. The franc had been devalued and therefore the project was off. 

“I could always try to get a job, of course, but it turned into a study journey along the foot of the Atlas Mountains”, J?rn Utzon recalls. “From valley to valley, tribe to tribe, in a wonderful countryside where they were building huge houses up to eight storeys high with tall towers along those fruitful valleys than ran out into nothing – out into the sand. I slept under the open sky, at least when I could shake off all the children in the town. Met a king, hospitality and a life that was simple and straightforward.”

Primitive architecture

The 30-year-old Utzon wandered around the southern side of the Atlas Mountains, on the border of the Sahara Desert. Walking 300 kilometres on foot, he experienced a fantastic landscape and powerful architecture of fortified villages.

Utzon became fascinated by the primitive architecture and the builders. He examined how the residents became engaged in the building by shaping the clay on the constructions with their own, bare hands. The citizens became invested in the building because they could do it themselves.

“All the houses were the same colour as the ground we stood on, and yet full of nuances. And when they were building – they were almost always doing that somewhere or other – they sang. Always in time with the way in which they stamped the clay in oblong moulds about three or four meters long and about seventy-five centimetres high. Always accompanied by singing. The facades turned out to be beautiful and around the window areas they were decorated with white and the furnishings made and carved in fine wood. The houses were so beautifully placed, not like a Danish or Swedish detached house or inflexible residential housing – they stood there just as though placed there just as I like to place them in relation to each other and in relation to the rises in the terrain” - J?rn Utzon.

The buildings here seem to have grown out of the ground on which the stand. This is not so remarkable as they are built of the local clay, which is mixed with straw and stamped into shape. It is the predecessor of the reinforced concrete that was subsequently to transform many of Utzon’s visions into reality.

Moroccan inspiration

The primitive architecture became a great inspiration for Utzon. Also, he found and understood the influence of primitive architecture on Le Corbusier’s work in Chandigarh, India. The Swiss architect knew the importance of engaging the people in the building - an important element in this type of architecture. 

The influence of Morocco’s architecture comes to show in Utzon’s later work. He drew inspiration from the courtyards in Morocco to his Danish projects in Fredensborg and Elsinore. The formal cohesion of fortified villages such as Ait-Ben-Haddou, south of the Atlas Mountains, made a lasting impression. Seen on a visit to Morocco in 1947, their lessons are clearly evident a decade later in the courtyard housing schemes, which also appear to be “made in one casting”. To the right, you can see one of Utzon’s sketches of a Moroccan city.

Another inspiring experience in Morocco was the opportunity to spend time together with desert nomads when Utzon lived in tents and shared the incredibly simple way of life of his hosts. Not least this experience was of significance when Utzon built the first house for himself and his family.

Utzon also met with Danish artist Asger Jorn in Casablanca. They discussed the museum Utzon would later build in honour of Jorn back in Silkeborg, Denmark.

Genius Loci

The spirit of the place, as it is called in English. This philosophy was always the starting point for all of J?rn Utzon’s buildings, whether they were in Helleb?k or Kuwait. Utzon did not put pencil to paper before he had absorbed the world that is to be contained in his buildings. This applies not least to his studies of the buildings and cities of the Orient.

“If you look at some of my projects – building projects – there is no doubt that they are marked by that relationship to each other and the place. The first thing I got out of the trip. And then the simple way of living with the food just outside the door, and where the dog stood nothing could grow. I was profoundly inspired by this way of building in natural surroundings like in the proposal for a paper works, a hall where the machines stand between two end walls under some concrete elements as a roof. As simple as that. Making use of the slope in the terrain to achieve the necessary pressure on the water. But it was mainly the houses in the natural surroundings and the way in which people lived and got their food to eat everywhere” - Jorn Utzon.

Learn more about J?rn Utzon and his fascinating world at www.utzonphotos.com.