"Thank you all for your warm and wonderful words and flowers extended towards Jørn Utzon on his death, celebrating his long and beautiful life among us.
Jørn lived a full life, all of the 90 years that he was given among us. He had a wonderful life for 66 years with my mother. He was a warm and inspiring father for us children, and he was a great and gifted architect.
I think back on my life with my father with great joy and love. To be allowed to spend so much time together with such a remarkable man, father and architect, has been a great privilege indeed.
He was the most positive person I’ve ever met. He never talked about things or people he did not like. Always only positively about what interested him. He hated gossip and slander. He often spoke with great enthusiasm about the heroes in his profession, about the many wonderful people in music and arts that he loved, about people with noble character, whatever their status in our society. He was the ever inquisitive person. Nothing escaped his keen eye. He observed the world around him with extraordinary clearness.
From all these sources of inspiration, be it the pyramids of Mexico, the temple compounds of China, the half-timbered farms of Denmark, the branch of a tree, the leaf on a flower, a stone from the beach, the pattern in the snow, the slant of the sunlight, from music, sculpture, paintings and the humanistic thinking by great philosophers, he created a world of his own, a legacy of great and modest buildings that are ours to enjoy, far beyond his lifetime.