Jørn Utzon
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Jørn Utzon (born April 9, 1918) is a Danish architect best known for his groundbreaking design for the Sydney Opera House.
He was born in Copenhagen as the son of a naval engineer, and grew up in Denmark. In 1957 he unexpectedly won the competition for a new opera house in Sydney, Australia, despite the fact that it was his first non-domestic design and his entry did not meet the contest criteria because the designs he submitted were little better than preliminary drawings.
Over several years Utzon gradually made major changes from his original concept designs and gradually developed a way to construct the large shells that cover the two halls, replacing the original elliptical shells with a design based on complex sections of a sphere.
Although Utzon had spectacular plans for the interior of these halls, he was unable to realise this part of his design. In mid-1965 the state Liberal government of Robert Askin was elected and Utzon soon found himself in conflict with the new Minister of Works, Davis Hughes. Attempting to rein in the escalating cost of the project, Hughes began questioning Utzon's designs, schedules and cost estimates, and he eventually stopped the payments to Utzon, who was forced to resign as chief architect in February 1966. He secretly left the country days later, never to return.
In an article in Harvard Design Magazine in 2005 [1], professor Bent Flyvbjerg argues that Utzon fell victim to a politically lowballed construction budget, which eventually resulted in a cost overrun of 1,400 percent. The overrun and the scandal it created kept Utzon from building more masterpieces. This, according to Flyvbjerg, is the real cost of the Sydney Opera House.
The Sydney Opera House was finally completed, and opened in 1973 by Queen Elizabeth II, and is one of the world's most recognizable buildings.
In March 2003, Utzon was awarded an honorary doctorate for his work on the opera house by the University of Sydney. Utzon's son accepted the award on his behalf as he himself was too ill to travel to Australia. Utzon has also been awarded the Order of Australia and the Keys to the City Of Sydney. He has also been involved in redesigning the opera house, and in particular, the reception hall, following an agreement made in 2000. Also, in 2003 he received the Pritzker Prize, architecture's highest honor.
In March 2006 Queen Elizabeth II opened the western colonnade addition to the building that was constructed by Utzon in the last years without him having been to Australia since 1966. His son Jan took his place in the opening ceremony instead, saying his father "is too old by now to take the long flight to Australia. But he lives and breathes the opera house, and as its creator he just has to close his eyes to see it."
Among Jørn Utzon's other projects are: Planetstaden housing project in Lund, Sweden (1958) - Kingohusene housing project in Elsinore (1960), The National Assembly of Kuwait (1972), Can Lis - Mallorca (1972), Bagsværd Church (1976) and The Paustian Furniture Store both in Copenhagen (1987), Can Feliz in Mallorca (1995).
[edit] External links
- Utzton Associates Architects
- Utzon Center
- The Kingohouses website
- The Sydney Opera House history
- The Edge of the Possible, 58 minute documentary, 1998, Dir: Daryl Dellora, Film Art Doco Pty Ltd
- Can Lis and Can Feliz in Mallorca
- The master builder who didn't build
- SAW - architect led tours of Utzon's House
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| Johnson (1979) • Barragán (1980) • Stirling (1981) • Roche (1982) • Pei (1983) • Meier (1984) • Hollein (1985) • Böhm (1986) • Tange (1987) • Bunshaft/Niemeyer (1988) • Gehry (1989) • Rossi (1990) • Venturi (1991) • Siza (1992) • Maki (1993) • Portzamparc (1994) • Ando (1995) • Moneo (1996) • Fehn (1997) • Piano (1998) • Foster (1999) • Koolhaas (2000) • Herzog & de Meuron (2001) • Murcutt (2002) • Utzon (2003) • Hadid (2004) • Mayne (2005) • Mendes da Rocha (2006) • Rogers (2007) |
