Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
SYDNEY OPERA HOUSE
Frank Lloyd Wright called it a 'circus tent' and Mies van der Rohe thought it the work of the devil, yet Danish
architect Jørn Utzon (1918-2008) bequeathed Sydney one of the 20th century's defining architectural monu-
ments.
Utzon was 38 when he entered the NSW government's competition to design the Opera House in 1956 and,
remarkably, had only realised a few small houses by this age. Working from navigational maps of the site and
memories of his travels to the great pre-Columbian platforms in Mexico, Utzon achieved the unimaginable. His
great architectural gesture - billowing white sails hovering above a heavy stone platform - tapped into the es-
sence of Sydney, almost as if both building and site had grown from the same founding principles.
Eight years on, having realised his designs for the platform, concrete shells and ceramic skin, Utzon had a
change of client following the election of new NSW Premier Robert Askin. By April 1966, owed hundreds of
thousands of dollars in unpaid fees, Utzon was unceremoniously forced to leave his building half-finished. He
afterward commented that the six years he spent developing the house's interiors and glass walls, for which
there is nothing to show, were the most productive of his working life.
Attempts at reconciliation with Utzon began in the 1990s, and in 1999 he agreed to be taken on as a consult-
ant for a new acoustic interior for the building. Sadly, Utzon died in 2008 having never returned to Australia to
see his masterpiece.
Many buildings from the 1970s and '80s are forgettable, but striking exceptions include
the Capita Centre on Castlereagh St and Governors Phillip & Macquarie Towers (
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