Opera House's bad vibe

Philippe Mora has written a meandering long piece in the Sydney Morning Herald, accusing Jorn Utzon of plagiarism, for not name-checking Otto Bartning’s 1922 Sternkirche design . He then notes that Utzon’s mentor was Alvar Aalto, a “straight-out Nazi collaborator”. Speaking of which, Gropius and van der Rohe were apparently into “Nazi modernism” for a while too. Then there is Utzon’s own Nazi-induced love of South American ruins:

“Architecture for the masses was a Nazi theme. Speer made references to making buildings that would be good-looking ruins. Speer thus invented a theory of Ruin Value . Utzon later parroted this in a postcard to his assistant, Bill Wheatland: “Went to Yucatan. The ruins are wonderful so why worry. Sydney Opera House becomes a ruin one day.” It is reasonable to speculate that Utzon champion and Opera house competition judge Eero Saarinen, a World War II veteran of the US Office of Strategic Services (which later became the CIA), no doubt fully aware of the Nazi aspects, briefed Utzon on what was politically correct at the time to disclose or not.”

“So it is not surprising that Utzon never mentioned any of this complex history back in 1957 or later.”

Huh?

Anyway, just to be on the safe side, when you design something, credit everyone in your library except the Nazis.

SMH reports Mora article as news
Aalto’s trip to Wannsee
Albert Speer and the Fascist Theory of Ruins

Posted by Peter on 14.03.10 in buildings