Jorn Utzon (1918 – 2008)
Pritzker Prize-Winning Architect of the Sydney Opera House, Jorn Utzon was perhaps destined to design buildings that evoke the sea. Utzon’s father was director of a shipyard in Alborg, Denmark, and was a brilliant naval architect. Several family members were excellent yachtsmen, and the young Jørn became a good sailor himself.
Utzon has created a style marked by monumental civic buildings and unobtrusive housing projects. He incorporates the balanced discipline of Asplund, the sculptural quality of Alvar Aalto, and the organic structures of Frank Lloyd Wright into his designs. Influenced by architectural tradition, he attempts to create architecture for living that adheres to a strict structural and constructive process.
Utzon always considers site conditions and program requirements before he designs each building. He transcends architecture as art and develops his forms into poetic inventions that possess thoughtful programming, structural integrity and sculptural harmony.
Jorn Utzon is certainly best known for his revolutionary Sydney Opera House. However, Utzon created many other masterpieces in his lifetime. He is noted for his courtyard-style housing in Denmark, and he also designed exceptional buildings in Kuwait and Iran.
Notable Buildings:
1974 – Church at Bagsvaerd, Copenhagen, Denmark
1956 – Kingo Houses, Elsinore, Denmark
1959 – Houses in Fredensborg, Fredensborg, Demark
1957 – 1973 – Sydney Opera, Sydney, Australia
