Bagsvaerd church how light and shadow are affecting the building Bagsvaerd church how light and shadow are affecting the building Bagsvaerd church how light and shadow are affecting the building

1. How Light And Shadow Are Affecting The Building.?
INTRODUCTION OF THE BUILDING
 Bagsvaerd Church is situated on a long, narrow piece of land and has been designed accordingly.
 It is a long, slender building opening on to a range of small interior courtyards, and it faces the surrounding
world with completely closed façades.
 In addition to the nave, sacristy, offices, rooms for confirmation classes, and a meeting room, the church building
also includes a whole section devoted to youth activities.
 All these rooms are linked by means of wide corridors, both intersecting the building and running along the
external walls.
 Lighting for the various secondary rooms comes in from the small courtyards through sidelights.
 The corridors receive light from above from bands of skylights extending across the entire width of the corridor.
 The church’s body and the sacristy are lit through highly placed sidelights extending across the entire width of
the building.
 Historically speaking, the building of churches has always been an expression of the most sophisticated
construction technique of the time.
 The great spans have been achieved by means of vaulting and pillars so that the naked structures have provided
the church with its character and appearance.
 Even the highly decorated examples from the baroque age show the structural elements clearly and so as all can
understand them.
 The component assemblies so clearly delineated are part of a larger idea in which things that are constant and
regular, the structural and cladding systems for example, are drawn into a complementary relationship with
things that change: people and daylight, in particular.
 Utzon’s understanding of how light is to be admitted to the church governs where the building is open, where it
is enclosed, and, as a result, how it stands up.
 Therefore, the role of light as organizer becomes central to understanding the relationships between ordering
systems, materials, the qualities and organization of spaces, and the greater meaning of the building.
 “It is light,” Jorn Utzon has written, “that is the most important thing in this church.

2. “The inspiration that I derived from the drifting clouds above the sea and the shore [forming] a
wondrous space in which the light fell through the ceiling — the clouds — down on to the floor
represented by the shore and the sea.”
– Jorn Utzon
 Here in Bagsvaerd Church, the most elegant building technique for large spans has been taken into
service.
 The ceilings, which at the same time support the outer roof, are formed as reinforced concrete shells,
quite thin, about 12 centimeters, for spans of 17 meters.
 This is possible on account of their being shaped like curved cylindrical shells.
 It has been possible to shape these shells freely by means of circular geometry so that the architect’s
wishes concerning height, pitch, and fall could be met.
 The demands of acoustics also influenced the shape of the rooms.
 The thin shells rest on gable walls or flanges, which again are supported by rows of double columns
acting as something akin to flying buttresses.
 The rows of columns extend along the building’s external walls and form side aisles within the main
church area and corridors in the rest of the building.
 They are covered with VITAL skylights, which in their sophisticated simplicity of detail and with their
splendid dimensions, provide this important architectonic element, the skylights, with the desire
ethereal character.
 The church is provided with white walls and white ceilings so that the daylight, which of course is quite
sparse for most of the year in Denmark, can be used to the full and so that all surfaces and facets come
into their own.
 It is the light that is the most important feature of this church.

3. THE CORRIDORS
 It comes as something of a surprise, at least on a first visit, that just on the other side of
Bagsvaerd’s blank exterior elevations is a continuous, inhabitable, channel of light.
 This channel is a part of the network of corridors that surrounds and crosses through the
building, guiding visitors and gathering light. The corridors are tall (about twice their width)
and continuously glazed overhead.
 They admit skylight in all seasons and domesticate sunlight, which, once admitted, is induced
to reflect and re-reflect from upper surfaces downward.
 Low sun, rising in the east and setting in the west, is also intercepted by cross beams of
varying increased depths in corridors running east-west.
 Sunlight is scattered by fine textured, white interior wall surfaces.
 If it seems brighter in the corridors than outside, even on overcast days, it is because, as
Utzon has explained, white walls reflect more light than relatively dark houses, landscapes,
and plants.
 “The light in the corridors” he wrote, “provides almost the same feel as the light
experienced in the mountains during a sunny day in winter, making these elongated
spaces happy places in which to walk.”
 Recent research establishes a firm basis for the feelings of well being that result from
exposure to illumination rich in wavelengths found in daylight, including light from an
overcast sky.
 While the specific mechanisms for the relationship between light and health are not
completely understood, it is reasonable to believe that the invigorating atmosphere of
Bagsvaerd Church is realized by the quality of its light and the strategy behind it.
 It is a place for people and light in motion.

4. THE COURTYARD
 Utzon employed courtyards in a number of early projects and in all of his built works after
Sydney, which is, in fact, a piazza or public square, a type of courtyard.
 Bagsvaerd Church incorporates six courtyards, seven if you count the sanctuary.
 Each improvises a slightly different combination of uses and influences so that the courtyards
become entries, gathering spaces, gardens, spaces that extend the visual reach of small interior
rooms, and receivers of light from the top of the sky.
 Through these courtyards, sun and skylight are translated into interior light.
 The surfaces of the courtyards receive light and reflect it toward the wood and glass screens that
enclose adjacent rooms.
 The screens, roughly equal portions of wood and glass, are infill partitions rather than wall.
 They filter incoming light and blur the distinction between interior rooms and exterior courts.
 The courtyards, in combination with the church’s corridors, make daylight available to the rooms
of the church from two sides.
 With corridors crossing the building, courtyards carved from its center, and white interior walls,
light seems to come from everywhere.
 Summer sun is softened and the few precious hours of winter light are distributed generously
throughout the building so that the interior appears to be suffused with daylight throughout the
year.
 The introduction of skylight into Bagsvaerd Church brings to mind Sir John Soane’s Bank of
England, which similarly met its surrounding streets with a massive, windowless, horizontally
rusticated screen wall that concealed an array of variously skylighted rooms and courtyards.
 Together, Utzon and Soane pose a very modern question: by what means can we bring the
outside world inside? Because of the ways in which courtyards domesticate a bit of nature,
gather daylight, make shade and shadow, block or welcome breezes, and open themselves to the
sky, they lend us a version of that exotic both/and sensation, in this case, one of being inside and
outside at the same time, so that a visitor feels the thrill of being simultaneously exposed and
protected. Because it is controlled yet open, the courtyard is a space in which people and light
are encouraged to improvise.

5. LIGHT AND DETAILS
 Bagsvaerd Church is not about fine materials or intricate detailing.
 Utzon’s concern lies with the insightful use of that which is common: materials such as concrete and wood, forms familiar from the history of
building, and most common of all, daylight.
 The prefabricated and repetitive building systems (structure, cladding, flooring, infill screens) are intended to standardize construction procedures
and minimize details, an approach that justifies, at least theoretically, the legendary paucity of drawings produced by Utzon for his projects.
 The church relies on the qualities of its surfaces and the play of light on textures to reveal the directness of construction and the inherent qualities
of materials as well as to realize the character of its spaces.
 Surfaces such as floors, walls, and ceilings are distinguished as much by varying reflectivity than by differences of hue or material.
 The Church’s cool, light atmosphere alludes to a tradition of Scandinavian modernism and enlarges that tradition’s spectrum of whiteness.
 In general, surfaces are finished so that a visitor is more likely to look directly at a matte finish or fine texture and to see diffused light than to see
a shiny surface, bright sky or sun.
 Inside, white concrete floor planks are polished but wall-cladding planks at eye-level are white and fine-textured, each distinguished from the
other by a joint of gray mortar.
 The organization of building elements is read through the highlights and shadows of joints, a large-scale texture resulting from the required
separations between cladding or floor planks and between planks and structure.
 The undulating ceilings throughout the church are concrete sprayed over reinforcement into wood forms and painted white.
 The textures of the forms remain visible in highlights and shadows as evidence of the process of casting concrete, the making of a liquid into a
solid.
 With the fluid form of these vaults, the perception that they float, their concrete construction, and the play of daylight on their surfaces, they
convey complementary impressions of weight and weightlessness, movement and stability, inside and outside.
 On the building’s facades, the transition from ground to sky and from platform to canopy is registered quietly.
 Vault and ceiling locations are indicated approximately where the concrete planks, oriented horizontally, are clad with smaller, white glazed tiles,
oriented vertically.
 The combination of matte and glazed surfaces that envelopes the shells at Sydney is employed again at Bagsvaerd so that as the building reaches
its heights the matte surface evolves into a shimmer more explicitly responsive to light and sky.
 What Utzon has said of the sanctuary is also true of the exterior: “I…have created a space that fades upward.

6.  The light in the church itself comes mainly from the very large, highly positioned, west-facing sidelight.
 It is reflected down the ceiling’s whitewashed, curved surfaces and provides a shadowless light that decreases slightly lower down.
 The room acquires a softness that produces an elevated, optimistic feel.
 In the two high side aisles along the nave, the skylights allow the sun to fall indirectly on to the outer walls, providing hints of sunbeams.
 The two aisles separate the curving ceiling surfaces above the nave from the outer walls so that these stretches of the ceiling have the effect of
insubstantial canopies.
 The church’s interior also continues beyond the balcony behind the altar, where the sacristy is situated with its large skylight.
 It is also linked to the body of the sacristy so that the actual church interior is not like an enclosed box surrounded by four walls, but – on three sides
– it disappears from sight out into these spaces.
 This lack of completion provides a sense of openness and infinity.
 The fourth side, opposite the altar, is finished by the porch, terminating the nave across its entire width with a light, fence-like grill of glass and wood.
 This wall also provides light to the church’s body so that there are no dark walls or corners in there at all.
 The light is allowed completely to fill the church.
 The light from the west-facing, highly positioned sidelight is most concentrated as it falls on the altar and the floor space around it, the focal point of
the religious ceremonies.
THE LIGHT IN THE HALLS
 The corridors are totally lit by skylights – from wall to wall – 100%.
 Together with the white walls and the pale grey floor, this produces an intensity in the light, which is always greater than outside, where it is
impossible to achieve the same reflection from the dark surroundings: soil, plants, and buildings.
 The light in the corridors provides almost the same feel as the light you experience on a sunny day in winter high up in the mountains, making these
elongated spaces a joy to walk in.
THE LIGHT IN THE CHURCH

7.  So with the curved ceilings and with the skylights and sidelights in the church, I have architectonically attempted to realize the
inspiration that I derived from the drifting clouds above the sea and the shore.
 Together, the clouds and the shore formed a wondrous space in which the light fell through the ceiling – the clouds – down on to the
floor represented by the shore and the sea, and I had a strong feeling that this could be a place for divine service.
 In addition to the nave and the sacristy, there are various secondary rooms: an office for the clergy, an office for the sacristan, a room
for the verger, one for the organist and choir, rooms for confirmation classes, a parish meeting room, and study rooms.
 All these have outer walls looking out on small, intimate courtyards containing flowers and plants. As for the porch walls, these are
grills of wood and glass, 50% glass and 50% wood, providing a consistent sidelight in the rooms.
 The large overhang shades against direct sunlight and provides a peaceful light by which to work – no one is dazzled.
 Contact with the plants in the courtyards is in certain places intensified by means of larger panes of glass in the grills.
 The peaceful light in all these secondary rooms harmonizes with their functions as places in which to work and contrasts to the
varying light in the corridors, which always reflects the slightest alteration in the outdoor light coming in through the large skylights.
 This variation in the lighting in the different rooms is thus the result of very conscious consideration.
“The inspiration for the form and the architecture came from a wonderful visit, not once, but several times, to a vast sandy
beach in on one of the Hawaiian islands Oahu, on the windward side, where the trade wind ceaselessly comes from California
many thousands of meters above the sea, like a completely steady breeze, and from early morning it increases in strength until
11 o’clock o that you can lean against it – otherwise you don’t know the peace that wind gives – and sometimes it brings some
clouds with it, and then the light and the sun fall through the clouds down on to the sand.”
– Jorn Utzon
THE INTENTION