"I have created a sculpture"

One of the greatest architects of the past century, Jørn Utzon, died last Saturday, 29.11.2008.
When he won the competition for the design of the Sydney Opera House at the age of 38 Jørn Utzon was hardly known internationally. However, although his famous shell design propelled the Dane into the international limelight, it also brought him up against the limits of the possible.

Jørn Utzon was born in Copenhagen in 1918. The son of a shipwright, he studied architecture at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. After completing his studies he worked, among others, for Alvar Aalto, Frank Lloyd Wright and Gunnar Asplund, who had a strong influence on him, as he himself confirmed. In 1950 he founded his own architectural practice, concentrating mainly on the design of private housing. Only seven years later he received the commission for the Sydney Opera House and designed an iconic building for the Australians which would soon become the architectural emblem for the continent.

“I have made a sculpture … you will never be finished with it – when you pass around it or see it against the sky… something new goes on all the time… together with the sun, the light and the clouds, it makes a living thing.” (Jørn Utzon, 2002)

Utzon was ahead of his time not just stylistically but also technically, with a sculptural design featuring a rounded concrete roof consisting of 14 sections and complex structural statics. The daring construction of the shell design in the end proved problematic, with the construction work taking sixteen years instead of the original seven, and at a final cost of 57 million dollars instead of the projected 3.5 million. After he was required to make cuts which would have made the implementation of significant components of his overall concept impossible, the harassed Utzon not only withdrew from the project but also vowed never to set foot on Australian soil again. Later, when he was awarded an honorary doctorate by Sydney University in the year 2003, it was however age and ill health which prevented him from viewing his masterpiece – his son Jan accepted the honour on his behalf.

Further major works by Jørn Utzon are the Schauspielhaus in Zurich in the year 1966, the Bagsværd church in Copenhagen from 1976 and the Kuwait parliament building from 1972 which was damaged in the first Gulf War. In 2003 he received the Pritzker Prize for his life's work.

In recent years he supported his son Jan in the modernisation of the Sydney Opera House. At the re-opening in 2006 Jørn Utzon, who had never set foot in Australia since leaving in 1966 and had never seen his masterpiece in its finished form, was excused by his son: "He's too old for the long flight to Australia. But he lives and breathes the opera house and as its creator he closes his eyes and sees it."

Jørn Utzon died in a care home to the north of Copenhagen surrounded by his family.