A Quest for Origins? Danish Encounters with Mexican Architecture

This paper investigates the postwar encounters of Danish architects with Mexican architecture—Pre-Columbian, colonial, and vernacular rather than contemporary—as reflected in their travels, publications, and projects between 1949 and 1965. Alongside Mediterranean and Muslim regions, Mexico held a privileged position in the internationalization of Danish architects through study trips. In 1949, Jørn Utzon undertook a seminal journey with Norwegian architect Arne Korsmo, traveling from the U.S.–Mexico border to the Yucatán to visit Pre-Columbian ruins. Several other Danish architects followed: Eva and Nils Koppel in 1959; Poul Erik Skriver in 1965, who later published an account in Arkitekten, the journal he edited; and photographer Jesper Høm, who released in 1965 the series Huse uden arkitekter (“Houses Without Architects”). This paper argues that these encounters illuminate a widespread narrative within the postwar Danish architectural profession: that modern architects should turn to both ancient and vernacular dwellings as origins and resources for modern design. In the specific case of Mexico, the urban forms of Pre-Columbian settlements, along with rural dwellings and colonial patio-houses, were not merely studied for their historical significance but actively mobilized to rethink human needs in postwar housing and planning. To a large extent, this instrumental gaze draws on interpretive categories rooted in concepts akin to the vernacular, which—within the Mexican context—raises critical questions about the distinction between pre- and post-colonial periods and the latent framework of a Western-centric narrative. These narratives further unpack a one-way transfer of architectural references from Mexico to Denmark, as several projects in Denmark eventually display such influences, including Utzon’s housing architecture, Koppel’s Technical University of Denmark (1961), and Henning Larsen’s proposal for Stockholm University (1961). This paper ultimately seeks to enrich perspectives on the complex international circulations of architectural ideas in the postwar period.