悉尼歌剧院设计师Jorn Utzon（1918－2008）去世
据《纽约时报》报道：设计了世界上最为瞩目的建筑－－
悉尼歌剧院的建筑师Jorn Utzon于11月29日在哥本哈根去世，享年90岁。
澳大利亚总理陆克文在对乌特松的悼词中评价道：“他设计的悉尼歌剧院是最独特和杰出的建筑，是澳大利亚广为全世界熟知的地标性建筑，全体澳大利亚人都珍视这一遗产。”
在1950年当其在哥本哈根建立事业时，他曾为瑞典的Gunnar Asplund和芬兰的Alvar Aalto工作。
1956年，他在瑞典的一家建筑杂志上，得到了悉尼歌剧院设计竞标的消息。他花费六个月，设计了草图，屋顶呈船帆状，他称这个灵感来自橘子的一部分。他的计划受到了芬兰的设计师也是当时的评委Eero Saarinen的挑战。1957年，他正式成为该项目的设计者，在接下来的五年里，他都在丹麦为此项目而工作，1962年，全家来到了悉尼。当歌剧院的外壳完工后，由于和新南威尔士的官员Davis Hughes产生了分歧，后者拒绝支付给设计师费用，他便于1966年离开了澳大利亚，而且一生再未踏入澳大利亚一步。直到离开人世，也没有亲眼见过自己设计的悉尼歌剧院。
离开悉尼歌剧院的设计工作后，乌特松一直僻世独居。在谈及当时离开歌剧院的内部装修设计工作时，乌特松曾表示，他并不为此感到后悔，因为这是人生的一部分。
2003年，Jorn Utzon获得了Pritzker奖，这也是建筑业最高的奖项。当时的评委Frank Gehry认为：”Utzon创造了一座超于时代的建筑，面对着非议和恶意的攻击，他创作了一座改变整个国家形象的建筑。”
悉尼歌剧院管委会主席金姆·威廉姆斯在乌特松逝世后表示，为纪念这位伟大的设计师，悉尼歌剧院的外部照明灯将熄灯以示哀悼。他还说：“乌特松是一个建筑奇才，他留给澳大利亚和世界人民伟大的礼物。悉尼歌剧院也是全澳大利亚人的骄傲，是澳大利亚人民族认同的一部分。”同时，悉尼港大桥也将降半旗对设计师表示哀悼。
Biography（From wikipedia Jørn Utzon）
Utzon was born in Copenhagen, the son of a naval engineer, and grew up in Denmark. From 1937 he studied architecture at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, worked for Alvar Aalto and visited Frank Lloyd Wright’s school in Arizona.He started his own office in 1950 in Copenhagen. In 1957 he unexpectedly won the competition to design the Sydney Opera House. Although he had won six other architectural competitions previously, the Opera House was his first non-domestic design. The designs he submitted were also little more than preliminary drawings. One of the judges, Eero Saarinen, described it as “genius” and declared he could not endorse any other choice.
Utzon refined his original conceptual designs for the shells over several years. One particular difficulty was that the Cahill government was so eager to commence the project that they arranged for the engineers, Ove Arup and Partners, to put out tenders for the podium without adequate working drawings; this work actually began in 1959 while Utzon was still in Denmark working on the final plans.
The extraordinary structure of the shells themselves represented a puzzle for the engineers. This was not resolved until 1961, when Utzon himself finally came up with the solution. He replaced the original elliptical shells with a design based on complex sections of a sphere. Utzon says his design was inspired by the simple act of peeling an orange: the 14 shells of the building, if combined, would form a perfect sphere. Although Utzon had spectacular, innovative plans for the interior of these halls, he was unable to realize this part of his design. In mid-1965 the state Liberal government of Robert Askin was elected. Askin had been a ‘vocal critic of the project prior to gaining office.’His new Minister for Public Works, Davis Hughes, was even less sympathetic. Elizabeth Farrelly, Australian architecture critic has written that
| “ | at an election night dinner party in Mosman, Hughes’s daughter Sue Burgoyne boasted that her father would soon sack Utzon. Hughes had no interest in art, architecture or aesthetics. A fraud, as well as a philistine, he had been exposed before Parliament and dumped as Country Party leader for 19 years of falsely claiming a university degree. The Opera House gave Hughes a second chance. For him, as for Utzon, it was all about control; about the triumph of homegrown mediocrity over foreign genius. | “ |
Utzon soon found himself in conflict with the new Minister. Attempting to rein in the escalating cost of the project, Hughes began questioning Utzon’s capability, his designs, schedules and cost estimates. Hughes eventually stopped payments to Utzon. Unable to pay his staff, Utzon was forced to resign as chief architect in February 1966.
When Utzon left, the shells were almost complete, and costs amounted to only $22.9 million. Following major changes to the original plans for the interiors that finally rose to $103 million.
In an article in Harvard Design Magazine in 2005, Professor Bent Flyvbjerg argues that Utzon fell victim to a politically lowballed construction budget, which eventually resulted in a cost overrun of 1,400 per cent. The overrun and the scandal it created kept Utzon from building more masterpieces. This, according to Flyvbjerg, is the real cost of the Sydney Opera House: “Utzon was thirty-eight when he won the competition for the Opera House – how would the work of the mature master have enriched our lives? We’ll never know. That’s the high price Sydney has imposed by its incompetence in building the Opera House.”
The Opera House was finally completed, and opened in 1973 by Elizabeth II, Queen of Australia. The architect was not invited to the ceremony, nor was his name mentioned.
In March 2003, Utzon was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Sydney for his work on the Opera House. Utzon’s son accepted the award on his behalf as Utzon himself was too ill to travel to Australia. Utzon was also been made an honorary Companion of the Order of Australia (AC) and given the Keys to the City of Sydney. He was also involved in redesigning the Opera House, and in particular, the Reception Hall, following an agreement made in 2000.
In 2003, he received the Pritzker Prize, architecture’s highest honor. In March 2006, Queen Elizabeth II opened the western colonnade addition to the building that was constructed by Utzon in the last years without having been to Australia since 1966. His son, Jan, took his place in the opening ceremony instead, saying his father “is too old by now to take the long flight to Australia. But he lives and breathes the Opera House, and as its creator he just has to close his eyes to see it.”
On 28 June 2007, the Sydney Opera House was declared a World Heritage Site.
Utzon died in Copenhagen on 29 November 2008, aged 90, of a heart attack in his sleep after a series of operations. He died having never returned to Australia to see the completed opera house.
When Sydney Opera House was opened in 1973, there was no mention of the designer of the iconic Australian edifice. This was rectified by Queen Elizabeth II in March 2006.
Answer: Joern Utzon was the Danish architect who entered and won the international competition announced in January 1956 to design Australia’s national opera house which is today’s Sydney Opera House.His prize for the winning design was 5000 Australian pounds (equivalent at that time to what would have been AU$10,000, but the Australian dollar was still in the future).
Joern Utzon was born in Copenhagen in 1918 and graduated from Denmark’s Academy of Fine Arts in 1942. He established an architectural practice in his hometown in 1950.
After winning the competition for the opera house design, he spent six years planning, and another three years overseeing the construction of, the Sydney Opera House.
He resigned from the project in 1966 after disputes with the state government. He left Australia and never stepped inside the opera house he had designed.
Utzon’s disaffection with the state government which caused him to resign from the Sydney project continued through more than a decade while the Sydney Opera House achieved iconic architectural status and Utzon’s genius was more and more — and more universally — recognised. Efforts to invite Utzon back to Sydney failed.
In 1999, Sydney Opera House invited Utzon to prepare a Statement of Design Principles to guide future changes to the building which he had left uncompleted or had been completed by others. Burying the acrimony of the past, Utzon agreed to work on the project as a consultant with his son and partner Jan.
In 2003, at the age of 85, Joern Utzon was further recognised by his peers and awarded the prestigious Pritzker Prize, regarded as the Nobel Prize of architecture.
On the eve of the Sydney Opera House’s 30th birthday in 2003, the Danish architect sent a video message to Sydney expressing his gratitude at being involved in the current progressive works on the Opera House. “My gratitude is from the heart,” he said. “Thank you very much for giving me permission to work again on the House.”
Official recognition
When Queen Elizabeth II opened the Sydney Opera House with much fanfare in 1973, there was no mention of Utzon who had designed the edifice that has become an Australian icon.
In March 2006, when the new addition, the western colonnade, was opened, finally recognition was officially made of Utzon’s work.
Queen Elizabeth II said it was gratifying to be asked to perform her second opening ceremony at Sydney Opera House, and “one that does unique justice to the creator of the building, the great Danish architect, Joern Utzon.”
Joern Utzon died on November 29, 2008, in Copenhagen, his home country, Denmark. He ws 90 years old.
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