Press Release: Exhibition Tells the Story of Utzon’s Masterpiece

The Utzon Center in Aalborg is celebrating the 50th anniversary of the completion of the Sydney Opera House with a permanent exhibition telling the story of Jørn Utzon’s iconic building.

The Sydney Opera House is one of the most photographed buildings in the world. It is an icon. And now this masterpiece by the Danish architect Jørn Utzon is 50 years old.
 
To mark this milestone anniversary, the Utzon Center proudly presents a new, permanent exhibition about the Sydney Opera House.
 
- This is a must-see exhibition, because it’s all about Denmark’s world heritage. It will erase any preconceived boundary between dreams, architecture and engineering. When delving into all the stories, I cannot help but be intrigued by the creation of a building, where the architect chose to leave his work than to settle for something half completed. Jørn Utzon’s uncompromising attitude also means that there are a myriad of beautiful, unknown ideas that never became part of the building we know today. You can discover many of them in this new exhibition, says Line Davenport, Director of Exhibitions at the Utzon Center.
 
The exhibition Sydney Opera House: A Beautiful Idea will take visitors on an inspiring, occasionally dramatic journey into the story of Utzon’s building – which he abandoned before it was completed – and of the visions that quickly caught the attention of the entire world.
 
The philanthropic association Realdania has funded the exhibition to the tune of DKK 4.9 million.

- The exhibition tells the story of an architectural masterpiece: a story that gets us thinking about the significance of architecture in our lives. The Sydney Opera House is an excellent example of how a building not only fulfils a purpose and has a function, but can also – by virtue of its construction and architecture – transform a place into something very special. It is an important story to tell, because architecture, of whatever scale, can help enhance places, generating new local identity, pride and sense of community. That’s why Realdania funded the exhibition, says Jesper Nygård, CEO of Realdania. 

The exhibition tells a story of a masterpiece that all started with Jørn Utzon’s childhood in Aalborg. Then came sketches and abstract lines, drawn with a soft pencil in a small yelllow-brick building in a beech forest outside Copenhagen.
 
The result? A building, 16,000 kilometres from Denmark, which is one of the most important architectural works of the 20th century.
 
The exhibition features Jørn Utzon’s own drawings and models, showing the progress from the first fledgling ideas to the building in Sydney – now a UNESCO World Heritage Site and a symbol of “human creative genius”.
 
Discover how, in his work, Jørn systematically deployed his creativity and studies of nature and travelled the world in quest of inspiration.
 
More than anything, the exhibition is a tribute to the beautiful idea and the desire to create a world that, in Utzon’s own words, contains “something more than pure function… it’s called poetry.”

• Read more about the exhibition Sydney Opera House: A Beautiful idea
• Press folder featuring photos and video (to be updated)

Contact

Realdania
Simon Harboe
Chief of Projects
Telefon: +45 2238 2957
Email: sih@realdania.dk 

Utzon Center
Lars Ulrich Hansen
Chief of Communication and Development
Kunsten Museum of Modern Art + Utzon Center
Telefon: +45 3199 4105
Email: LUH@kunsten.dk