Jørn Utzon

Jørn Oberg Utzon was born on April 9, 1918, in Copenhagen and grew up in Aalborg, where his father was a naval architect. Studying at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, he was influenced by Alvar Aalto, Frank Lloyd Wright, and traditional Mayan and Islamic architecture.

In 1957, Utzon won the international competition for the Sydney Opera House with his daring design featuring billowing sculptural concrete shells reminiscent of billowing sails. His structural breakthrough of deriving all shell segments from the surface of a single sphere solved complex engineering challenges. In 2007, the Sydney Opera House was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site while Utzon was still alive.