Carlsberg for Leiviska - architect Juha Leiviska awarded Carlsberg prize

Architectural Review, The, July, 1995 by Michael Ball

The second Carlsberg architectural prize has been awarded to the Finnish architect Juha Leiviska. The 200 000 Ecu (approx $250 000) prize, the world's most valuable, is awarded to 'an architect or group of architects contributing to the creation of works of lasting architectural and social value'. Leiviska was chosen by a six person jury(*) out of a list of over 52 candidates selected by the world's architectural magazines.

The previous winner (1992), Tadao Ando, was chosen because of his commitment to the essentials of architecture, 'his will to create a haven of calm ... amidst the over-stimulation of the senses and the hysterical searching for novelty which characterise Post-Modernism'. The choice of the second winner reinforces these values, and is intended to help establish the Carlsberg as a prize for essence rather than fashion.

On behalf of the jury, Peter Davey read out their accolade at a ceremony in the New Carlsberg Glyptotek when the Queen of Denmark presented the prize to Leiviska on 19 May: 'Juha Leiviska, the winner of the second Carlsberg Architectural Prize is 59 years old. He graduated as architect from the Helsinki University of Technology in 1963, and after collaborating initially with Bertel Saarnio on Kouvola Town Hall has been in practice on his own since 1967, over the last 17 years in partnership with Vilhelm Helander. Throughout this time, he has entered well over 40 competitions and built some 18 buildings of various kinds including private residences, housing, libraries, schools, day care centres, an embassy and a considerable number of churches and parish centres, of which the most well known are St Thomas' Church at Puolivalinkangas and the Myyrmaki Church and Parish Centre at Vantaa.

'There is no question but that Leiviska's architecture emerges directly from the Finnish tradition and this means to a certain extent from the work of Alvar Aalto. However what sets Leiviska's work in a class apart is the way in which it is also related first to other more rational Finnish masters such as Aulis Blomstedt and, second, and perhaps more significantly, to certain older sources, such as Bavarian Baroque churches and the timber vernacular of Finnish agrarian culture.

'Leiviska has been particularly inspired by the way in which traditional Finnish villages have been assembled according to a particular module, to logs of a standard size as determined by their ease of handling. This last has no doubt led to his habitual use of a tectonic module in each of his works, one which inevitably determines the spatial permutation into which each of his buildings is articulated. This accounts in each instance for what he has identified as "localities": relatively defined spaces both large and small, that tend to proliferate along the conceptual spine which constitutes the basis for most of his works. This approach is particularly marked in his recent German embassy in Helsinki and in his Toyrynummi School and Day-Care centre, although the same principle may be readily detected throughout the inner space and the exterior perimeter of most of his churches and community centres.

'This proliferation is closely related to the all-but musical counterpoint that is perceivable in Leiviska's work. This reveals his profound connection to the Baroque, not only as an architect but also as a musician. The other decisive connection to the Baroque is unquestionably Leiviska's use of light that emerges from the three-dimensional, syncopated articulation of his walls and roofs to such an extent that the internal volume is invariably transformed into a light-modulator: one that is susceptible to every nuanced change in the direction, intensity and tone of the light, varying by the hour and from one season to the next. This is enriched by an equally conscious fugal play of artificial light that often originates from delicately articulated suspended fittings designed by the architect himself. In all this, reflected light adds yet another changing dimension to the richness of effect attaining, a particularly numinous diaphanous layering in the Myyrmaki and Mannisto churches. Beyond this, other necessary inflections arise first out of Leiviska's extremely sensitive response to the form and texture of the topography and second out of his deeply felt conviction that an essential counterpoint in architecture is the life it accommodates; as he has put it, "A building isn't just an object, it's all the life that goes on inside and its contacts with the surroundings. A simple conflict isn't enough, a mutual affinity is just as important".

'It is difficult to describe in retrospect the procedure by which we have arrived at our choice; 52 candidates have been nominated by 80 architectural magazines from all over the world.'

'The candidates fell into two main categories, one group has tackled the major building types of our epoch on an international scale, the other has worked on a more local level, based on local traditions.'

'From these two rather general categories we finally and unanimously selected one outstanding architect who, while he has achieved an extensive body of work over his 28 years of independent practice, has done so almost exclusively on a regional basis. He has thus become, possibly due to his temperament, an architect who is at once familiar and yet relatively unknown in international terms.'