ABSTRACT
Natural light is the energy that makes life on Earth possible; it conditions life, and it is one of the main factors influencing architecture. This means that light is key to understanding what architecture should be – the “third skin”, outside our own skin and our layer of clothing, which protects us from the aggression of the world around us. The Nordic light varies in intensity. The direction of the daylight moves – although it is never perpendicular to the Earth’s surface, as when the sun “beats down” in hotter climes. The natural refuge for ancient peoples in these northern regions was the forest clearing and the fire. The great Danish architect Steen Eiler Rasmussen wrote: “a campfire on a dark night forms a cave of light, circumscribed by a wall of darkness. In northern countries more than anywhere else, orientation towards sunlight is decisive for the shape of buildings.
