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Architecture · Modernist

Jørn Utzon

1918–2008 · Danish

Nordic modernism; 'additive architecture'

The Danish architect whose winning entry in a 1957 competition gave Australia the most recognisable building of the twentieth century — and whose battle with the New South Wales government over it drove him off the project in 1966, never to see it finished. Utzon built comparatively little: a church outside Copenhagen, a parliament in Kuwait, two houses for himself on Majorca. He was awarded the Pritzker Prize in 2003 and lived to see his masterpiece made a World Heritage Site.

How to spot them

  • ▸Platforms and podiums, with the roof treated as a separate floating element — an idea he traced to Mayan and Chinese architecture
  • ▸Prefabricated concrete units repeated in series, what he called 'additive architecture'
  • ▸Ribbed, folded or shell-like roofs; white tile; a plan laid on a great horizontal base
  • ▸Quiz clue: 'won a competition at 38', 'resigned in 1966', 'Pritzker 2003'

Key buildings

A 1973 performing arts centre on a harbour promontory, its white-tiled shells all cut from the surface of one sphere 75 m in radius (1973)

Bennelong Point, Sydney, Australia

Won in competition in 1957; the architect resigned in 1966 and the interiors were completed by Peter Hall

A white concrete church outside Copenhagen, entered through a cloister, with a nave roofed by cast in-situ concrete vaults curved like clouds (1976)

Bagsværd, near Copenhagen, Denmark

Bagsværd Church — the clearest statement of his ideas about the roof as an independent element

A Gulf parliament building of 1982 under a vast pleated concrete canopy, likened to a Bedouin tent, badly damaged in the 1991 Gulf War (1982)

Kuwait City, Kuwait

The Kuwait National Assembly Building, restored after the Iraqi occupation

A house of golden sandstone blocks built for himself on a Majorcan clifftop in 1971, four pavilions round courtyards, named after his wife (1971)

Porto Petro, Majorca, Spain

Can Lis — 'Lis's house', for Lis Utzon; he later built Can Feliz inland

A Danish courtyard housing scheme of 1963, yellow-brick L-shaped units stepping along a slope in a repeating pattern (1963)

Fredensborg, Denmark

The Fredensborg Houses, built for Danes returning from service overseas

Quick-fire facts

  • •Born in Copenhagen on 9 April 1918 and brought up in Aalborg, the son of a naval architect; he died on 29 November 2008
  • •His Sydney entry was famously rescued from the rejected pile by the juror Eero Saarinen
  • •He solved the geometry of the shells in 1961 by deriving them all from the surface of a single sphere, so the ribs could be precast in repeating sections
  • •He resigned on 28 February 1966 after conflict with the New South Wales works minister Davis Hughes over fees and control; protest marches followed
  • •The building was opened by Queen Elizabeth II on 20 October 1973, ten years late and at around A$102 million, some fourteen times the original estimate; much of it was paid for by a state lottery
  • •He never returned to Australia and never saw the completed building
  • •He was reconciled with the Sydney Opera House Trust in 1999 and drew up design principles for it; the Reception Hall reopened as the Utzon Room in 2004
  • •He won the Pritzker Prize in 2003 and the RIBA Royal Gold Medal in 1978
  • •The Sydney Opera House was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2007, one of the few listed during its designer's lifetime
  • •The Utzon Center in Aalborg, his last design, was completed by his son Kim Utzon and opened in 2008

Drill it — 7 cards

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Sources