Danish architect Jorn Utzon, Hon. FAIA, who designed the iconic Sydney Opera House, has been selected as the 2003 Laureate of the Pritzker Architecture Prize. While best know for the Australian commission, which he won in an international competition at the beginning of his career in 1957, Utzon continued to influence the built environment with several other significant works, including, according to the Pritzker jury, “handsome, humane housing; a church that remains a master work with its remarkably lyrical ceilings; as well as monumental public buildings for government and commerce.”

An eye for the future
The jury citation notes that “Utzon has always been ahead of his time. He rightly joins the handful of Modernists who have shaped the past century with buildings of timeless and enduring quality.”

Few in their mind’s eye are unable to conjure up a vision of the picturesque Sydney Opera House. The jury further comments, “It is one of the great iconic buildings of the 20th century, an image of great beauty that has become known throughout the word—a symbol for not only a city, but a whole country and continent.”

Frank Gehry, FAIA, the 1989 Pritzker prize winner and a member of this year’s jury, remarks on Utzon’s innovative work. “It is important because Utzon made a building well ahead of its time, far ahead of available technology, and he persevered through extraordinary malicious publicity and negative criticism to build a building that changed the image of an entire country. It is the first time in our lifetime that an epic piece of architecture gained such universal presence.”

Construction of the Opera House began in 1959, but lingered on for 14 years, during which time Utzon had a falling out with Australian government officials over contracting and engineering issues. He left Australia in 1966 and never returned, even to see his masterpiece completed. In 1972, Utzon was invited to design the Kuwait National Assembly, which was completed in 1982. His other projects, which are largely in Denmark, include the Fredensborg Housing Estate (1959–62), Bagsvaerd Church (1973–76), and the Skagen Nature Center (2001).

“In a 40-year practice,” architecture critic and jury member Ada Louise Huxtable observes, “each commission displays a continuing development of ideas both subtle and bold, true to the teaching of early pioneers of a ‘new’ architecture, but that cohere in a prescient way, most visible now, to push the boundaries of architecture toward the present.”

Distinguished honor
Utzon, who turned 85 this week and is the first Dane to win the Prize, will be honored in a May 20 ceremony at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Madrid. He is in poor health and has retired to a house he designed for himself on the island of Majorca. His two sons, Jan and Kim, continue the practice of Utzon Architects in Haarby, Denmark. His daughter, Lin, is an artist. Jan will accept the award, which includes a bronze medal and a $100,000 grant, on his father’s behalf.

The Pritzker Prize, established in 1979, honors living architects for consistent and significant contributions to humanity and the built environment through the art of architecture. The award was set up by the Pritzker family of Chicago and is administered by the family's Hyatt Foundation. Past recipients have included Philip Johnson, FAIA; Luis Barragán, Hon. FAIA; Kevin Roche, FAIA; I.M. Pei, FAIA; Richard Meier, FAIA; Tadao Ando, Hon. FAIA; Frank Gehry, FAIA; Sir Norman Foster, Hon. FAIA; and Australian Glenn Murcutt.

—Tracy F. Ostroff

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