![]() ![]() Western Loggia Project Architect Jørn Utzon Rifts between architects and their clients are commonplace. Last year, however, without fanfare a sign went up over construction scaffolding on the Opera House site. When the Opera House finally opened, in 1973, he refused an invitation to the ceremony. He became reclusive, declining to speak about his work. Utzon went back to Denmark with his reputation tarnished. The building was completed without regard for his intentions. After he had worked for a decade and settled his family in Australia, conflict with the state government of New South Wales forced him to leave, with the project only two-thirds finished. Yet the Sydney Opera House, instead of making Utzon’s career, almost ruined it. Kahn remarked, “The sun did not know how beautiful its light was until it was reflected off this building.” In the end, the judges’ decision was unanimous, and Utzon began work on one of the most famous architectural designs of the twentieth century. Saarinen himself took up pastels and completed two large sketches to fill the gap. Alone among the entrants, Utzon had recognized that the building would be seen from all perspectives when looked down upon from the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the buildings nearby, it would have, in effect, a “fifth façade.” Eero Saarinen, the most distinguished of the competition judges, called the design “a work of genius.” Utzon had disregarded competition rules, using gold on drawings that were supposed to be black and white, and neglecting to include a required perspective of the building in its harbor setting. His design evoked sails, shells, and gull wings. The son of a naval architect, he studied the Sydney site from nautical charts purchased at a marine bookstore in Copenhagen, to get a feel for the action of winds and tides against the landform. He had won several competitions but had built nothing larger than a pair of modest housing projects. Jørn Utzon worked out of a studio near a house he had designed for his young family in the small seaside township of Hellebæk. Two hundred and thirty-three entries were submitted, of which the most arresting was by a little-known thirty-eight-year-old architect from Denmark. Fifty years ago, the state government of New South Wales, in Australia, announced a competition for the design of an opera house to occupy a sandstone headland in Sydney Harbour. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |