Jørn Utzon Centennial

John Hill

9. 4月 2018

Utzon Center, Aalborg, Denmark (Photo: Bang Clemme Film & Openhouse)

Today, 9 April 2018, marks the 100th anniversary of Jørn Utzon's birth. The famed Danish architect, who died in November 2008 at the age of 90, is being celebrated with exhibitions at the Utzon Center in Aalborg and a series of interviews with architects from Denmark and elsewhere.

Athough known globally for the iconic Sydney Opera House, which he designed in an international competition in 1957 but would never see completed, Jørn Utzon realized most of his buildings in his native Denmark. It is in Aalborg, north of Aarhus, where Utzon grew up and where his last building is located: the Utzon Center was completed in 2008, five years after he won the Pritzker Architecture Prize. It is the venue for exhibitions celebrating Utzon's centennial — one of them, Horisont, draws attention to the architect's travels.

Sydney Opera House (Photo: Hamilton Lund)

Jørn Utzon at his house in Hellebæk, Denmark (Photo courtesy of Utzon Center)

The Utzon Center, in collaboration with the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art's Louisiana Channel, has also produced a series of videos on the occasion of Utzon's centennial. Below is an interview with Louis Becker of Henning Larsen Architects, one of nearly a dozen interviews in the "On Jørn Utzon" series. See interviews with Bjarke Ingels, Renzo Piano and more in our Film feature from last month.