Today the Melbourne Age reported that Utzon had passed away on Saturday at the age of 90 in Denmark (I thought he had retired to Mallorca, but perhaps the tourists have taken it over)? Anyway, the article quotes Utzon on the Sydney Opera House, “together with the sun, the light and the clouds, it makes a living thing”. I wrote a thesis on Nordic Organic Architecture many years ago on the notion of dissolving architecture from the inside out but here is another twist on what is “organic”: the structure in moving light (the Opera house was designed to have blue tiles on its many roofs) created a living space. Ironically, today my wife pointed at a harbour city on TV and asked me if that was Auckland but when the Sydney Opera House swung into view immediately went “oh”. No wonder, Sky Tower is a direct rehash of Centrepoint, but Auckland has no Opera House and probably never will. Where is the public architecture at the edge of the world?

Bagsvaerd Church, Lygnby Denmark