Bio

(From Great Buildings Online)

Jørn Utzon was born in Copenhagen in 1918. He studied at the Academy of Arts in Copenhagen, under Kay Fisker and Steen Eiler Rasmussen. After spending the war years studying with Erik Gunnar Asplund, Utzon travelled through Europe, the United States and Mexico. He established his own practice in Copenhagen in 1950 when he returned from his travels.

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.

(From Britannica)

Danish architect best known for his dynamic, imaginative, but problematical design for the Sydney Opera House, Australia.

Utzon studied at the Copenhagen School of Architecture (1937-42) and then spent three years in Stockholm, where he came under the influence of the Swedish architect Erik Gunnar Asplund. He also studied in the United States, and, for a six-month period in 1946, he worked in the office of the Finnish architect and designer Alvar Aalto. Among his important early works were two houses in Denmark, his own at Hallebæk (1952) and another at Holte (1952-53).

In 1956 Utzon's dramatic design for the new opera house at Sydney placed first in competition and brought him international fame. Construction, however, posed a variety of problems, many resulting from the innovative nature of the design, a series of saillike shells. He resigned from the project in 1966, but construction continued until September 1973. The completed Opera House is now Sydney's best-known landmark.

Utzon is also noted for two housing estates, one near Helsingør (1956) and another in Fredensborg in northern Sjælland (1957-60). Both made effective use of the surrounding terrain. His Bags uaerd Church (1976) in suburban Copenhagen has the appearance of clustered farm buildings. He was given numerous awards for his works, including a gold medal by the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1978.

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