Jørn Utzon studied at the Royal Danish Academy under Kay Fisker and Steen Eiler Rasmussen, worked for Gunnar Asplund in Stockholm, visited Alvar Aalto in 1946, and then travelled — Morocco, Mexico, the United States, later China and Nepal — collecting the platforms, courtyards and tiled roofs that recur through his work. He called his method additive architecture: standardised parts multiplied like the elements of a language rather than composed once. The Kingo courtyard houses at Helsingør, Bagsværd Church, the Kuwait National Assembly and Can Lis on Mallorca all argue it. The Sydney Opera House, won in competition in 1957, made him famous and then broke him; he resigned in 1966 and never returned to Australia. The Pritzker Prize came in 2003, five years before his death.
