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Chinese Colours and the Sydney Opera House (1956-1966): Jorn Utzon's Reinterpretation of Traditional Chinese Architecture

2013; Oxford University Press; Volume: 27; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1093/jdh/ept029

1741-7279

Chen-Yu Chiu, P. L. MYERS, Philip Goad,

Cultural Heritage Management and Preservation

Throughout his life, Danish architect Jørn Utzon (1918–2008) was obsessed with traditional Chinese architecture, which played a crucial role in his colour schemes for the Sydney Opera House (1956–1966). However, current scholarship has not yet provided a detailed and rigorous discussion of Utzon’s deliberate analogies with Chinese colours. This article seeks to clarify Utzon’s artistic debt to China, by closely examining his colour proposals for the Sydney Opera House. Utzon’s Opera House colours represent a unique matrix of cultural dissemination and transformation between China, Scandinavia and Australia; a subtle manifestation of cross-cultural influence and mastery of design within the history of modern architecture. This article contributes to the potentially rich historiography on the relationship between Utzon’s designs for the Sydney Opera House and his own growing understanding of traditional Chinese architecture. We contend that traditional Chinese architecture functioned as an impetus to confirm Utzon’s unique design convictions. The scope of this article is to understand Utzon’s Sydney Opera House as a significant example of cross-cultural dissemination and transformation between China, Scandinavia and Australia within the history of modern architecture.