19. Promote your name or lose your fame.

If you believe, as many people do, that the Sydney Opera House is the most famous piece of architecture to be produced in the 20th century, then it follows that the man who designed it, or most of it, Jørn Utzon is one of the most famous architects of that century, nothing less than a genius.

Yet Richard Weston, author of a new book on Utzon, points out that the architect has a relatively low public profile and many architectural historians have neglected his work.


This is perhaps because Utzon, unlike most major architects, has no set predictable style, no school of followers. Nor has he aggressively pushed his views into the public realm as other famous architects have. Not for him the celebrated marathon public lectures of Buckminster Fuller, or the short pithy catchphrases of Frank Lloyd Wright. And indeed for much of his life he has resisted being written about.

The first book to be produced with Utzon’s full co-operation has been written by Professor Weston from Cardiff University’s School of Architecture. And it’s size and considerable weight is the first indication that it’s credentials surveying Utzon’s life and most important work.



Utzon
Author: Richard Weston
Publisher: Edition Blondal 2002
Distributed in Australia by David Messent Photography
Available from Sydney Opera House and the architecture section of good book stores.



From http://www.abc.net.au/rn/czone/stories/s709532.htm. "the comfort zone" with Alan Saunders

ALSO SEE THESE RELATED NOTES FROM PREVIOUS WEEKS:
15. You have to work at it
9. Fight! Its a Hobbesian war.