Jørn Oberg Utzon, AC (9 April 1918 – 29 November 2008) was a Danish architect most notable for designing the Sydney Opera House in Australia. When the Sydney Opera House was declared a World Heritage Site on 28 June 2007, he became only the second person to have his work recognised as a World Heritage Site while he was still alive.
Utzon was born in Copenhagen, the son of a naval engineer, and grew up in Denmark. From 1937 he studied architectur...
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Jørn Oberg Utzon, AC (9 April 1918 – 29 November 2008) was a Danish architect most notable for designing the Sydney Opera House in Australia. When the Sydney Opera House was declared a World Heritage Site on 28 June 2007, he became only the second person to have his work recognised as a World Heritage Site while he was still alive.
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, went on to work for Alvar Aalto and later 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 project. 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...
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