Utzon, Jorn

Utzon was born in Copenhagen, the son of a naval engineer, and grew up in Denmark. From 1937 he attended the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts where he studied under Kay Fisker and Steen Eiler Rasmussen. After graduating in 1942, he went to Sweden to work for Gunnar Asplund. After the end of World War II and the German Occupation of Denmark, he returned to Copenhagen. In 1946 he visited Alvar Aalto in Helsinki. From 1947–48 he travelled in Europe in 1949 in the United States and Mexico. In America he attended Taliesin West, Frank Lloyd Wright\'s school in Arizona. In 1950 he established his own studio in Copenhagen. In 1957 he unexpectedly won the competition to design the Sydney Opera House. Although he had won six other architectural competitions previously, the Opera House was his first non-domestic project. The designs he submitted were also little more than preliminary drawings. One of the judges, Eero Saarinen, described it as \"genius\" and declared he could not endorse any other choice. (source: wikipedia)