Utzon Uncovered: Revisiting JOrn Utzon's Masterwork on Mallorca

Description

In 2012, Danish architect Lise Juel completed the restoration of fellow Dane Jorn Utzon's magnificent residence on the Spanish island of Majorca, known as Can Lis. Uncovering Utzon is a series of pensees by Juel describing the process of restoring the beloved architect's unique and magnificent construction for the Utzon Foundation. Accompanying Juel's evocative account of her experience working at Can Lis are the equally evocative images of the house by eminent architectural photographer Helene Binet. Known for her emotionally powerful black-and-white photographs of the work of the world's most important architects, past and present, Binet brings her unique eye to Can Lis to produce a breathtaking portrait of Utzon's spectacular, elemental masterpiece. Together, Juel's personal account and Binet's inimitable photography illustrate the simple yet undeniable power of this rough-hewn Modernist architectural landmark that embodies the guiding principle espoused by Utzon himself: "If we understand the nature of a material, we have to be able to understand the structure of wood, the weight and the hardness of stone . . . we must become one with our materials."

Lise Juel is an award winning Danish architect, founder of Atelier Lise Juel, and an associate professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen. She worked closely with Jorn Utzon on his last project, the Utzon Centre in Aalborg, and restored two of his most known projects, his own house, Can Lis, and the Kingo Houses. Over a period of twenty-five years Helene Binet has photographed both contemporary and historical architecture. Her list of clients include architects Raoul Bunschoten, Caruso St John, Zaha Hadid, Daniel Libeskind, Studio Mumbai, Peter Zumthor and many others. Binet has also photographed the works of past architects as Alvar Aalto, Geoffrey Bawa, Le Corbusier, Sverre Fehn, John Hejduk, Sigurd Lewerentz, Andrea Palladio and Dimitris Pikionis. Binet's work has been published in a wide range of books, and is shown in both national and international exhibitions.