Many thousands of people in this country and in Sydney, I suppose, in particular, have seen the results of your design in the Opera House now growing on Bennelong Point. We listen to him as he talks to Professor Ingham Ashworth. And at the top, the light, graceful, tough, and almost fantastic shapes of the Opera House roof symbolise the vision which has grown from the solid foundation. The splendid ceremonial approach is like the rise to knowledge and eminence of this international prize-winner. The massive base is like Utzon's grounding in the solid world of mathematical and physical properties and the laws of stress. This is a man who can see and enjoy the architectural merit and mechanical possibilities in the shape of a twig, who can resolve from theory and calculation a creation unlike anything in the world, a creation, which, in many ways, is like the man himself. It's from this deep absorption in all the aspects of his vocation that he has drawn his desires. Jorn Utzon, a man who thinks and lives only for architecture - these days, only for the architecture of the Opera House. Its Danish designer Jorn Utzon is now in Sydney to prepare the way for stage two, the erection of the vaulted shells of the roof. The curved facades of the massive stone base take shape and indicate that the first stage in the building of the Opera House is nearing completion. In the smaller hall, the stage is designed to revolve before 1,200 banked seats, and from inside the massive building with its complex machinery and masonry, the audience will have extensive views of one of the world's most beautiful harbours. Above these tiers will soar the largest arc of the shell roof. In this sweep of masonry, 3,000 people will sit uncrowded. Here in the main auditorium, this chasm will house the machinery which will raise and lower the stage in seven sections. Then on up the second steps to the podium where the two auditoria are placed. As you mount the grand ceremonial approach, you'll cross an arch of concrete, self-supported, and in form and conception, unique in the world. Here, close to where the first landing was made, Bennelong Point pushes out into Sydney Harbour, and on this historic thrust of rock is rising a new sort of building, a concept for a home of culture. 200 years ago, trees and scrub wandered down to the water's edge. This was the concept of the architect who gave us Design 218. Utzon's highly diverse projects around the globe, from the National Assembly in Kuwait and Melli Bank in Tehran, Iran, to the Bagsvaerd Church and numerous houses in Denmark, are testaments to his belief that modernism need not sacrifice local character to be forward thinking.VOICE-OVER: Reflecting the moods of the Sydney sky by day, mirroring its glimmering lights on the water by night, the Sydney Opera House will perform its own exciting drama on the harbour. While this early triumph brought Utzon worldwide fame, it overshadowed a larger body of work of great importance for modern architecture. His bold design consisting of five performance halls topped by billowing concrete shells clad in ceramic tile is universally recognized as a masterpiece of twentieth-century architecture. Visionary Danish architect Jorn Utzon was just thirty-eight years old when in 1957 he was named the surprise winner of an international competition to design the Sydney Opera House in Australia. Print Jorn Utzon - Drawings and BuildingsĪuthor(s): Michael Asgaard Andersen (Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Denmark)ĪRCHITECTURE MONOGRAPHS | PRINCETON ARCHITECTURAL PRESS | DRAWING + MODELLING
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