The House
The image below, taken earlier this month inspired Martin van der Wal to send us these thoughts.
HOANA and The House. Image Geraldine Wilkes
Jorn Utzon, a Danish architect/sailor with Viking origins, designed our most famous architectural form, the Sydney Opera House. Utzon‘s father, Aage Utzon was a naval engineer and the young Jorn grew up fascinated by the Danish boat-building workshops he frequented with his father. With a whole family of dedicated sailors, and his father famous for designing a distinct class of classic yachts developed from traditional hull forms, it should be no surprise that the ribs and shells of the Opera House share a strong geometric and functional connection with traditional Viking and Scandinavian boat forms.
Detail of 'The Gokstad Ship' Nicolaysen 1887
Utzon even named the load bearing beams as you drive under the steps after his father’s ultimate sailboat design the,” Sisu”beams. Aage Utzons ‘Sisu’ design was of the Spidsgatter type he made famous. The upright prows curve over our harbour like a stack of dinghies half buried in their Mayan rock shelf.
Fragments of vessels bottom boards –original Gokstad ship – Nicolaysen 1887
Sydney Opera House - generation of the shells– Jorn Utzon
But the Opera House with its Scandinavian roots did not arrive as an alien art form. The Rosehill Packet, the first boat ever built in the new colony was a distinctively double ended generic Baltic hull shape.
Daniel Hardie – Forgotten Fleets. Artist’s impression •The Rosehill Packet
Australian Lifesavers Surf Boat
Another quintessential Scandinavian craft, the Australian Lifesavers surf boat, has a direct lineage via the Port Jackson pilot gig through the whale boat as used by Bass and Flinders, and from there straight to the Greenland Whale Pinnace and the Viking sexaering. And we must not forget how immigrating to Australia in 1925, Norwegian, Lars Halvorsen brought his family’s century’s old Scandinavian boat-building traditions to Sydney Harbour. His classic early 20th Century launches as owned by exprime minister Paul Keating and many aficionados of traditional timber motor yachts are now the most sought after collectible on Sydney Harbour. With the famous sailing yachts he also designed they are distinctly Scandinavian with clean attractive lines and elegant suitability to purpose. Sydney’s Scandi history goes a long way back.