The Centenary of Jørn Utzon

It is a hundred years since the birth of Jørn Oberg Utzon in Copenhagen on April 9, 1918. Why is he notable? What precisely are we celebrating? And what does it mean for Sydney? How differently do Danes view and celebrate Utzon?

Twenty-five days in advance of the centenary, in the Utzon Room at the Sydney Opera House, Rayyane Tabet performed his flattering tribute, Dear Mr Utzon, inspired by the architect’s obscure 1968 proposal for a theatre in the Jeita Grotto in Lebanon. In August, Allen & Unwin will publish Helen Pitt’s The House: The Extraordinary Story of the Sydney Opera House. And there is more to come, in Sydney and Denmark, and in Utzon’s North Jutland home town of Aalborg, at the Utzon Centre.

Surrounded by an original Artek U336 Lamp, a 2005 Opera Pendant, and Utzon New Angle furniture, Tabet’s tribute assumed the form of a personal letter addressed to Utzon, accompanied by slides, film excerpts and music, the most moving being Paul Robeson’s unaccompanied rendition of “Old Man River” for the building workers in 1962, on the steps of the uncompleted Opera House.

The time has come to rethink the Utzon legend: so much has been written along the prevailing theme of the wounded artist-hero. This is understandable. The tragic saga of the Opera House had its origin in the political crisis of February 1966 which ranged conservative—some might say philistine—political forces against a radical outsider artist, set against the backdrop of Australia’s controversial entry into the Vietnam War. Utzon drew support from newly-arrived Middle European migrants, who saw it as a contest of culturally ignorant populism, and youth, who interpreted it as a political conspiracy against artistic freedom of expression. The crisis split the architectural profession into two groups: one supporting Utzon, irrespective of the facts; the opposing side, supporting the Coalition government of Robin Askin and his Minister for Public Works, were mostly architects in private practice and senior Royal Institute of Architects officials. I was an architectural trainee at the time and witnessed the crisis from inside government.

Such a simplistic interpretation of events is understandable. The 1960s was a decade of social revolt and division. I was an Utzon supporter and marched from Bennelong Point to Macquarie Street to protest against his dismissal.

Stories are framed in predictable ways: one being what Joseph Campbell termed, in his 1949 book of the same title, The Hero with a Thousand Faces. This was Tabet’s approach. Like his own Opera House, Jørn Utzon has himself been reduced to, and become, a symbol. The myth begins with the call to adventure—Utzon’s vision; followed by the adventure of the hero—Utzon’s search for technical engineering and architectural solutions to build that vision (the road of trials); succeeded by his death and apotheosis. Consciously or unwittingly, this is the road the numerous accounts in the Utzon legend travel. It is an appealing narrative because it is familiar and we know ahead how it will end, irrespective of whether the hero is Buddha, Moses, Jesus, Mohammed … or Utzon.

What is the truth? Was Utzon an innocent victim of corrupt politics, or was he partly responsible? Only when we delve deeper are we equipped to answer the question responsibly. After all, Utzon maintained a lifelong silence about key events and when confronted by journalists resorted to colourful stories, such as the one about the peeled orange to explain how he arrived at the geometry for the roofs.

Most accounts fail to examine the initial competition scheme, the two Greek theatres embedded in an artificial hillside on the jutting sandstone Bennelong Point. Nor do the various accounts examine in any detail his choice of lightweight ten-centimetre-thick concrete shells suspended in defiance of gravity above them, open all around to the harbour. Was the vision ever feasible, or was it just a lovely romantic Danish fairy tale, which Utzon or a successor would somehow, in the future, be forced to adapt to turn it into something resembling a working reality?

Few accounts confront the implications of this early incomplete competition sketch, which is all it amounted to at the time. Everything about it was back-to-front and defied 300 years of tried and tested theatre experience and development: audiences approached their seats from behind the stage, not from behind the theatre; there was no back stage, instead the large backstage area was excised and props and scenery were underneath and would have to be delivered indirectly onto the stage using a complex of lifts. Utzon’s solution to audience egress and fire safety was equally casual, by external stairs on the sides of his elevated platform/hillside. What Utzon intended was to return us to ancient Greece with opera in the outdoors, presented in concrete theatres open to a wonderful surrounding harbour waterscape as its magnificent theatrical backdrop, the kind of musical experience which today is enacted with “opera on the harbour”.

Whether or not this was ever practical, whether the vision that underpinned Utzon’s competition solution in December 1956 was ever capable of realisation, is a question without an answer. One thing is clear: Utzon struggled to do it. He progressed to the point of constructing the basic concrete platform with its sculptured Greek theatres. If you tear up the timber floor of the Concert Hall and the Joan Sutherland Theatre, you will see this hidden structure. It is a concrete reminder of what Utzon intended.

Utzon was a sculptor architect, who thought of architecture as a kind of additive process of form building, using standard industrial units, which according to their geometry could be flexibly combined to produce a range of forms. His term for the method was “Additive Architecture”, and it permeates his designs. The closest parallel is with the American sculptor Charles Perry (1929–2011). Sculpture and architecture have long been closely aligned historically, since ancient Egypt and Greece, down to the present day. Le Corbusier’s Ronchamp Chapel in 1952 resumed the connection, and Utzon followed him in Sydney with a design that is pure sculpture. This is its strength—and alas, its weakness—and the source of its worldwide popular appeal. In creating such a powerful iconic civic sculpture, and linking it to its harbour surroundings, he produced a kind of Botticelli Birth of Venus, symbolising the fertilisation of mankind by divinity and the consequent birth of beauty in the human soul. Utzon gifted Sydney something which up until then it had lacked—a paramount orienting focal monument.

Frank Gehry later imitated Utzon at Bilbao in Spain with his Guggenheim Museum, which has had the same impact on Bilbao as the Opera House had on Sydney—by placing it foremost on world awareness, like the Eiffel Tower in Paris, or Big Ben in London. Sydney, Australia, now had its symbol.

As we rightly celebrate Utzon the architect, there remain unanswered questions: What is his place in world architecture, how important is he, and what has been his influence? Is the Sydney Opera House one of the great buildings of the century? I do not presume to have all or any of the answers—time alone will be the judge of that. But I do have suggestions. Utzon exerted a considerable influence on his assistants in Sydney, architects like Richard le Plastrier, and in a more diffuse way, the very fact of his presence in Sydney opened young architects to the possibility that great architecture could be done in this country.

In Denmark, Jørn Utzon has joined the pantheon of national immortals alongside Tycho Brahe, Hans Christian Andersen, Søren Kierkegaard, Niels Bohr, Karen Blixen and the architect Arne Jacobsen. Utzon’s importance increases with each passing year. His international significance as architect is less assured. He designed a considerable number of private residences, few of which are noteworthy. Great reputations in architecture require something more substantial—significant civic or commercial projects—which is where the Sydney Opera House and the Assembly Building in Kuwait City come in. Both are celebrated more by reputation than for their success as working buildings. In each instance, Utzon walked out before the building could be completed. The Assembly Building was largely destroyed by Iraq during its occupation and retreat from Kuwait, when it was set on fire and used for target practice. The new interiors are not authentic and are far from impressive.

In the end, what are we left with? A lifetime dedicated to pursuing architectural excellence, the unquestioned masterpiece of his cliff house, Can Lis, on Mallorca, and his group housing at Helsingborg and Fredensborg, along with a great number of uncompleted schemes, furniture and lights. It is a mixed achievement. Utzon personifies the Danish character in ways that are often missed: his sense of adventure, his internationalism, his outward-looking vision which took him to China, the Yucatan, Morocco, Iran, looking for inspiration, and even, in a backhanded sort of way, Australia.

Utzon had a host of admirable qualities. He was as handsome as a Hollywood movie star, a loyal husband and father, generous, a practical joker who was also shy and reclusive, he exuded charisma, but nevertheless reached out to people in need.

Winning great international architectural competitions is generally viewed as opening the door to professional success and fame. All too often, however, it is a prelude to personal tragedy, such is the intense scrutiny, political and professional stress that accompany such nationally important projects. In many instances the architect becomes the victim of his success. Toronto City Hall, the Grand Arch in Paris, and the New Scottish Parliament killed their architects. Utzon was lucky to escape from Sydney with his life. His greatest personal achievement, ultimately, may have been just to survive. His two brothers died young in tragic circumstances without fulfilling their promise. Utzon alone, of the three Utzon boys, lived to ninety, and outlived enemies such as Robin Askin, Davis Hughes, and his successor, Peter Hall, on the Sydney Opera House, as well as many of his contemporaries.