# A Chorus of Contempt at The Sydney Opera House

An episode of [Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1484511465), 15 Sep 2023, 40 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/pdrl.fm/18db03/tracking.swap.fm/track/SxlTEPDY7xDg35RXkASs/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/c0ae8c6e-22f0-4e9b-ac1c-ae390037ac53/e7b72e72-4880-46f2-b6af-b07c0147765c/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=7f5a4714-6b10-4ccf-a424-ae390037ac70

1957. Jørn Utzon receives a phone call: he's just won an international competition to design a brand new opera house for the Australian city of Sydney. Utzon is unknown in the field, so this is a triumph. The young architect couldn’t have imagined what a bitter victory it would turn out to be... The Guggenheim in Bilbao; the Burj Khalifa in Dubai; the Shard in London. These days, everyone seems to want an iconic building. But Sydney Opera House was the first, the greatest – and the most painful. It's now fifty years since the Opera House was opened. This is its origin story. For a full list of sources, please see the show notes at timharford.com. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:15] Speaker 1: Pushkin.
[0:18] Speaker 2: Important sources for the episode you're about to hear include
[0:22] Speaker 2: Helen Pitt's book The House and Peter Murray's The Saga
[0:26] Speaker 2: of Sydney Opera House, along with How Big Things Get
[0:29] Speaker 2: Done by Ben Flubier and Dan Gardner. If you'd like
[0:33] Speaker 2: to learn more about the Sydney Opera House or about
[0:35] Speaker 2: mega projects, I strongly recommend you pick up a copy
[0:38] Speaker 2: of one or all of these books, which are available
[0:41] Speaker 2: from all good booksellers. For a full list of our sources,
[0:45] Speaker 2: see the show notes at Timharford dot com. In a
[0:53] Speaker 2: clearing in a forest, a day's walk north of Copenhagen
[0:58] Speaker 2: stood a little house, a fairy tale setting worthy of
[1:02] Speaker 2: Hans Christian Andersen perhaps, But this is no fairy tale,
[1:06] Speaker 2: and it wasn't a fairytale house. It was low, flat
[1:10] Speaker 2: and minimalist, Denmark's first open plan house. It had been
[1:15] Speaker 2: built in nineteen fifty two without proper floor plans. The
[1:19] Speaker 2: house's young architect was building his own home, and he
[1:23] Speaker 2: had insisted instead on personally directing the work as it progressed.
[1:27] Speaker 1: But it was brilliant.
[1:30] Speaker 2: Denmark's most celebrated architect visited the construction site and muttered
[1:34] Speaker 2: under his breath. Hell, he's better than I am. Maybe so,
[1:40] Speaker 2: it was hard to be sure. The young architect Jan
[1:44] Speaker 2: Utson had won plenty of competitions, but with his career
[1:48] Speaker 2: interrupted by the war, that house was almost the only
[1:52] Speaker 2: thing he had actually built. Late in January nineteen fifty seven,
[1:58] Speaker 2: the phone in the Utzon home rang Yawn and his
[2:02] Speaker 2: wife were taking a winter walk in the woods. Their
[2:05] Speaker 2: ten year old daughter, Lynn was at home babies hit
[2:09] Speaker 2: her newborn brother. She answered the phone, Hello, the village
[2:14] Speaker 2: operator was on the other end. She knew the family.
[2:18] Speaker 3: Lynn, is your father home?
[2:19] Speaker 4: No?
[2:21] Speaker 3: Is your mother home?
[2:22] Speaker 4: No, they're aren't walking.
[2:24] Speaker 2: Quick, go find your father.
[2:25] Speaker 3: He's won a prize.
[2:27] Speaker 2: Is someone from the newspaper in Sydney, Australia go to
[2:30] Speaker 2: home to come quick? Lynn drops the phone, leaves her
[2:34] Speaker 2: sleeping brother, and grabs her bike. She races out into
[2:37] Speaker 2: the Danish winter, yelling for her parents. It must have
[2:41] Speaker 2: been alarmed to see their little blonde babysitting daughter cycling
[2:44] Speaker 2: towards them, screaming at the top of her voice.
[2:48] Speaker 4: Sydney, Sydney.
[2:49] Speaker 1: She skids to a halt.
[2:51] Speaker 4: You've won a prize.
[2:52] Speaker 2: You won something in Sydney someone's on the phone and
[2:55] Speaker 2: they want to talk to you. It must have felt
[2:58] Speaker 2: like a phone call from the moon. The unknown young
[3:03] Speaker 2: Dane Jorn Utson had won an international competition to design
[3:08] Speaker 2: the Sydney Opera House. But Utson couldn't have imagined what
[3:13] Speaker 2: a bitter.
[3:14] Speaker 1: Victory it would prove to be.
[3:17] Speaker 2: I'm Tim Harford and you're listening to cautionary tales. Eugene
[3:45] Speaker 2: Goosen's was a distinguished violinist and conductor. In the nineteen forties,
[3:50] Speaker 2: he moved from Britain to the far away city of Sydney,
[3:54] Speaker 2: where he was struck by three things. The beauty of
[3:58] Speaker 2: the harbor, the apparent indifference of the locals to that beauty,
[4:03] Speaker 2: and the lack of a really good venue for classical music.
[4:09] Speaker 2: Dreamed up an idea, build a huge opera house on
[4:14] Speaker 2: Benelong Point, a finger of rock poking out into Sydney's
[4:18] Speaker 2: glorious harbor, in which blue water is surrounded on all
[4:22] Speaker 2: sides by the city and spanned by the vast arch
[4:26] Speaker 2: of the Sydney Harbor Bridge. Gooson's was charismatic, and local
[4:31] Speaker 2: politicians were keen to show that they could deliver cultural
[4:35] Speaker 2: amenities for Sydney voters. They formed a committee which announced
[4:40] Speaker 2: an open competition to design the.
[4:42] Speaker 1: New Opera House.
[4:44] Speaker 2: Anyone, even an unknown young architect from Denmark, could try
[4:49] Speaker 2: to win. As Goosen's grand project gathered momentum, he flew
[4:55] Speaker 2: back to London to be knighted by the Queen, and
[4:58] Speaker 2: on his return, tipped off by a journalist. Customs officers
[5:03] Speaker 2: asked to search his luggage. They found it to be
[5:07] Speaker 2: packed with naughty photographs and even naughtier rubber masks. In
[5:12] Speaker 2: nineteen fifties Australia, it was a scandal. Sir Eugene fled
[5:18] Speaker 2: back to London a broken man. Alas Sir Eugene's fate,
[5:25] Speaker 2: great talent, self inflicted wounds and a tragic end to
[5:29] Speaker 2: a great career is just the overture to the story
[5:33] Speaker 2: of the Sydney Opera House, in which the same dramatic
[5:37] Speaker 2: beats would play out on a much bigger stage. Not
[5:42] Speaker 2: that anyone should have expected the Sydney Opera House to
[5:45] Speaker 2: be an easy project. Sir Eugene had wanted big concert halls,
[5:51] Speaker 2: but Benelong Point was a cramped site.
[5:55] Speaker 1: The premiere of.
[5:56] Speaker 2: The state wanted a grand legacy, a building for the ages,
[6:00] Speaker 2: but no politician wanted to raise taxes to pay for it.
[6:04] Speaker 2: And opera houses are actually rather ungainly structures. Their bulging
[6:09] Speaker 2: towers for stage machinery are usually hidden behind grand facades,
[6:15] Speaker 2: but Sydney's opera House couldn't hide. It would be visible
[6:19] Speaker 2: across the water from north east and west, even from
[6:24] Speaker 2: above from the monumental Sydney Harbour Bridge. In announcing their competition,
[6:29] Speaker 2: then the committee laid down the challenge to architects from
[6:33] Speaker 2: around the world design an opera house for us. It
[6:36] Speaker 2: needs to be huge, fit onto a tiny site, look
[6:40] Speaker 2: amazing from any angle, and be cheap. Knock yourselves out.
[6:47] Speaker 2: In January nineteen fifty seven, the time came to choose
[6:51] Speaker 2: a winner. The judging panel spent four days sifting through
[6:56] Speaker 2: more than two hundred entries and drawing up a shortlist.
[7:00] Speaker 2: They were waiting for the arrival of the final judge,
[7:03] Speaker 2: an architectural rock star, the great Finnish American architect Eurosuarannon,
[7:10] Speaker 2: but he was running late. That was understandable. Sarannon was
[7:15] Speaker 2: a busy man, designer of landmarks such as the celebrated
[7:19] Speaker 2: TWA terminal at New York's International Airport and if buildings
[7:24] Speaker 2: like that helped New York to feel like the center
[7:27] Speaker 2: of the world, then Sydney, at the world's edge wanted
[7:31] Speaker 2: some of that stardust.
[7:34] Speaker 1: When the other.
[7:35] Speaker 2: Judges showed Ero saranon the ten leading entries, everyone could
[7:39] Speaker 2: tell that he wasn't impressed. The ideas were awkward compromises,
[7:45] Speaker 2: predictably boxed in by their attempts to satisfy the contradictory
[7:49] Speaker 2: requirements of the competition. Sarannon shook his head and went
[7:54] Speaker 2: for a stroll to ben Along Point. He sat and
[7:58] Speaker 2: sketched for a while, caressed on three sides by the
[8:02] Speaker 2: lapping waters of Sydney Harbor. It really was a magnificent spot.
[8:08] Speaker 2: He returned to the judging room and started flipping through
[8:11] Speaker 2: the rejects. There was one which stood out as completely different,
[8:17] Speaker 2: even though it was really little more than a sketch.
[8:20] Speaker 2: There was a monumental base, reminiscent of an Aztec pyramid
[8:24] Speaker 2: or a Chinese imperial palace. Floating above it were light
[8:30] Speaker 2: shell like roof structures overlapping like the sales of some
[8:34] Speaker 2: grand ship. It was like no building Sarnon had ever seen.
[8:40] Speaker 2: He laid it out, stepped back to ponder it, stepped
[8:44] Speaker 2: forward to peer at the details. Then he turned to
[8:48] Speaker 2: the other judges.
[8:51] Speaker 3: Gentlemen, here is your opera house.
[8:58] Speaker 2: Twelve days later, the state premiere, Joseph Cahill, stands in
[9:03] Speaker 2: front of the cameras with a sealed envelope. He's a
[9:06] Speaker 2: former trade union organizer, not your stereotypical opera goer. But
[9:12] Speaker 2: now that the disgraced Sir Eugene Goosen's has fled the country,
[9:16] Speaker 2: ky Hill has surprised some people by stepping up as
[9:20] Speaker 2: the opera house's biggest champion. Like any good politician, he's
[9:25] Speaker 2: going to milk this dramatic moment. The winning design he
[9:29] Speaker 2: announces is scheme number two hundred and eighteen. And who
[9:37] Speaker 2: designed that? Ky Hill doesn't have the name to hand.
[9:40] Speaker 2: An official hurries forward, rummages in the envelope, pulls out
[9:44] Speaker 2: a second document. Ah, yes, a scheme number two hundred
[9:48] Speaker 2: and eighteen, submitted by yorn Utson of Hellebake, Denmark. Yorn Utzon,
[9:58] Speaker 2: who a reporter from the Sydney Morning Herald, places a
[10:03] Speaker 2: long distance call to directory assistance in Hellebake. They try
[10:08] Speaker 2: Utzen's office number, He's not there. Then they try his
[10:12] Speaker 2: home number. The operator comes back on the line. Apparently
[10:16] Speaker 2: he's gone out for a walk, but his daughter has
[10:19] Speaker 2: gone to find him. Is it okay to hold for
[10:23] Speaker 2: the first interview with the unknown winner of the Sydney
[10:27] Speaker 2: Opera House competition.
[10:29] Speaker 1: Sure he'll hold.
[10:31] Speaker 2: All of Australia wants to know about the mysterious Yawn Utson.
[10:43] Speaker 2: When the winning sketch was published, public opinion was divided.
[10:48] Speaker 2: Letters published in the Sydney Morning Herald described the design
[10:52] Speaker 2: as a wonderful piece of sculpture. A haystack covered by
[10:56] Speaker 2: several tarpaulins, array of hope, a sink with plates stacked
[11:02] Speaker 2: in readuless for washing, some large lovely ship of the imagination.
[11:08] Speaker 2: A hideous parachute which we cannot fold up and put away.
[11:13] Speaker 2: But when your Nutson arrived in Sydney, some of those
[11:16] Speaker 2: doubts began to melt away. Tall, blonde, blue eyed, that
[11:23] Speaker 2: sexy Danish accent movie star looks he's our Gary Cooper,
[11:28] Speaker 2: declared one local lady. Sydney was a bustling place, but
[11:32] Speaker 2: it usually felt far from the world's spotlight. Now it
[11:36] Speaker 2: felt as though Hollywood had come to call the city.
[11:40] Speaker 2: Fell in love with the man professional architects were more cautious.
[11:47] Speaker 2: The sketches were impressive, sure, but Udson hadn't submitted all
[11:52] Speaker 2: the plans and drawings the competition rules specified. One Australian
[11:57] Speaker 2: art critic described his entry as nothing more than a
[12:01] Speaker 2: magnificent doodle. What's more, Utson's doodled building overstepped the site's boundaries.
[12:09] Speaker 1: Then there was the question of.
[12:10] Speaker 2: Whether its glorious sail like roof structures could actually stand up.
[12:17] Speaker 2: None of this worried Eero Saranon, the rock star architect
[12:21] Speaker 2: who'd pushed his fellow judges into choosing Utson's entry. Nothing
[12:25] Speaker 2: to it, said Saranon, about those roof structures.
[12:29] Speaker 3: Three inches thick at the top and say twelve inches
[12:32] Speaker 3: thick at the base.
[12:34] Speaker 2: But concrete shell architecture was still an emerging field, and
[12:39] Speaker 2: many experts weren't so sure. Yes, eggshell structures could be
[12:44] Speaker 2: surprisingly strong, but cut the egg in half and much
[12:48] Speaker 2: of that.
[12:48] Speaker 1: Strength is gone.
[12:51] Speaker 2: And Utson's Opera House roof it was a series of
[12:55] Speaker 2: quarter shells. Until this point, Utson had taken no engineering advice,
[13:03] Speaker 2: and he wouldn't have long to figure out a solution
[13:06] Speaker 2: because the project's champion state Premierre Joseph Cahill was a
[13:10] Speaker 2: man in a hurry. He was a heavy smoker with
[13:13] Speaker 2: a history of health problems. He knew he was also
[13:16] Speaker 2: at risk of losing the next election. He wanted a
[13:20] Speaker 2: monument to his place in history, so he instructed the
[13:25] Speaker 2: Opera House team.
[13:26] Speaker 4: Go down to Bedlong Point and make such progress that
[13:29] Speaker 4: no one who succeeds me can stop this going through
[13:32] Speaker 4: the completion.
[13:34] Speaker 2: As a result, the building started before Utson could figure
[13:38] Speaker 2: out the structural basics. Joseph Cahill laid the foundation stone
[13:43] Speaker 2: on the second of March nineteen fifty nine. Within a year,
[13:49] Speaker 2: he was dead, killed by his third heart attack. But
[13:54] Speaker 2: just as he had intended, so much work had already
[13:56] Speaker 2: been done that stopping the project was unthinkable. By now,
[14:02] Speaker 2: an engineer had been found. His name was Over Aruk,
[14:07] Speaker 2: the Anglo Danish boss of over A Up and Partners,
[14:10] Speaker 2: a respected engineering firm. The two Danes, Utsun and Arup
[14:16] Speaker 2: had been working together to try to figure out a
[14:18] Speaker 2: solution to the structural problem, and it was at this
[14:21] Speaker 2: point that Arup informed Utsun.
[14:24] Speaker 1: Of the bad news.
[14:26] Speaker 2: His beautiful free standing roofshells simply couldn't be built. Cautionary
[14:34] Speaker 2: tales will return in a moment. There's no such thing
[14:47] Speaker 2: as too many Danes. So let's meet a third bent Flubia.
[14:53] Speaker 2: He's the world's leading expert on large projects and on
[14:56] Speaker 2: why these mega projects are so often delivered late and
[15:00] Speaker 2: way over budget. And he's fascinated by the Sydney Opera
[15:04] Speaker 2: House because it's the ultimate case study, the definitive fiata
[15:09] Speaker 2: of how not to run a mega project. Flubia says
[15:15] Speaker 2: that the original sin of many mega projects is this
[15:19] Speaker 2: people start building before they figured out what they're really
[15:22] Speaker 2: trying to do. The ideal mega project starts with a question,
[15:27] Speaker 2: why are we doing this? Then there's a long, careful
[15:32] Speaker 2: planning process, every detail is finalized. Then the expensive construction
[15:37] Speaker 2: phase can be kept as short as possible with no
[15:40] Speaker 2: costly changes. The Opera House violated these principles in the
[15:45] Speaker 2: most flagrant way imaginable. Nobody ever really answered the question
[15:51] Speaker 2: why so. Eugene Goosoms had wanted to accommodate a lot
[15:56] Speaker 2: of opera goers and use the beautiful location of Benelong Point.
[16:00] Speaker 2: The state's premiere, Joseph Cahill, had wanted a lasting monument
[16:05] Speaker 2: on the cheap, without spending taxpayer money. Utson wanted to
[16:10] Speaker 2: build something beautiful and new.
[16:15] Speaker 1: But what if you couldn't.
[16:17] Speaker 2: Make it both beautiful and cheap? What if you couldn't
[16:21] Speaker 2: make it big while also squeezing it onto ben long point,
[16:26] Speaker 2: the trade offs were swept under the carpet, the difficult
[16:29] Speaker 2: decisions postponed or ignored. Then, of course, the building was rushed,
[16:36] Speaker 2: with workers digging foundations before Utson and Arup had figured
[16:40] Speaker 2: out how to build the thing. Utson was in an
[16:44] Speaker 2: impossible position, and Utson wasn't blameless either. Remember how he'd
[16:50] Speaker 2: never drawn proper plans for his beautiful home in the
[16:53] Speaker 2: Danish forest, but instead had been on site throughout personally
[16:58] Speaker 2: directing the builders. Careful planning was all very well, but
[17:03] Speaker 2: he loved to experiment, to feel his way through a project.
[17:08] Speaker 2: It worked for his beautiful home, but could it also
[17:11] Speaker 2: work for a colossal, structurally innovative mega project. Utson worked
[17:18] Speaker 2: like an artist, not a project manager. He wanted to
[17:21] Speaker 2: make the final decision on every detail, no matter how small.
[17:27] Speaker 2: At one point he declared about a particular design change.
[17:31] Speaker 3: I don't care what it costs, I don't care what
[17:33] Speaker 3: scandal it causes. I don't care how long it takes,
[17:36] Speaker 3: that's what I want.
[17:39] Speaker 2: That attitude explains why Utson's Opera House is the most
[17:43] Speaker 2: beautiful building in the world. It also made him the
[17:49] Speaker 2: mother of all bottlenecks, especially as Utzon had a habit
[17:54] Speaker 2: of disappearing for weeks at a time. After his second
[17:58] Speaker 2: visit to Sydney, Utson decided to return to Denmark via China, Japan,
[18:04] Speaker 2: and Nepal. When he finally resurfaced, are Up jovially.
[18:09] Speaker 4: It was nice to hear from you. I really thought
[18:12] Speaker 4: you were lost in the wilds of Asia.
[18:15] Speaker 2: Utson had hoped to pick up inspiration on his travels
[18:18] Speaker 2: that he could use for the Opera House, and he did,
[18:21] Speaker 2: but decisions on the project ground to a halt without him,
[18:26] Speaker 2: and the problem of the roof was no joke. Utson's
[18:30] Speaker 2: original Magnificent Doodle used a variety of different curves that
[18:35] Speaker 2: caused two headaches. The first was the expense it made
[18:40] Speaker 2: every section of the roof a unique construction. The second
[18:45] Speaker 2: was more serious. Arup had to spend a fortune on
[18:49] Speaker 2: groundbreaking computer simulations to figure out whether they would collapse
[18:54] Speaker 2: under their own weight. Eventually, Arup concluded that they would.
[19:00] Speaker 2: It was Utson who solved the problem in a flash
[19:04] Speaker 2: of inspiration. He realized that each part of each vaulted
[19:09] Speaker 2: large or small, could be proportioned as though it were
[19:12] Speaker 2: sliced out of the same single enormous sphere. Doesn't sound
[19:18] Speaker 2: like much, but the structural properties of these spherical curves
[19:22] Speaker 2: were well understood, and because the curves would all be identical,
[19:28] Speaker 2: they could be built at much lower cost.
[19:33] Speaker 1: Utson was delighted.
[19:36] Speaker 3: It was the cheapest way of making it you could
[19:38] Speaker 3: dream of. All of the work during these three years
[19:41] Speaker 3: has been the background for arriving at this magnificent solution.
[19:48] Speaker 2: If they hadn't yet started construction, this would have been
[19:51] Speaker 2: a triumphant moment. Unfortunately, construction had begun two and a
[19:57] Speaker 2: half years earlier. The new design would require heavier supports
[20:03] Speaker 2: than the ones they'd just built, and the ones they'd
[20:06] Speaker 2: just built were almost indis ructible. The local contractor recommended
[20:13] Speaker 2: dynamiting them one by one during the rush hour so
[20:16] Speaker 2: that the noise would be camouflaged by the traffic. That
[20:20] Speaker 2: worked for a while until a lump of concrete was
[20:23] Speaker 2: blown high over the harbor and landed on a passing ferry.
[20:30] Speaker 2: Another opera house bungle yelled the local newspapers. Utson had
[20:37] Speaker 2: decided to move his office to Sydney to oversee proceedings.
[20:41] Speaker 2: That was a good idea, thought RUP's team, until Utson
[20:45] Speaker 2: told them he'd be traveling again and out of contact
[20:48] Speaker 2: between Christmas and March.
[20:51] Speaker 1: Arup begged him not to do this.
[20:54] Speaker 2: There were so many decisions to be made, and Utson
[20:57] Speaker 2: was the only person who could make them. But Utson
[21:00] Speaker 2: agreed only to a long meeting near London's Heathrow Airport
[21:04] Speaker 2: the day after Christmas to pin down a long list
[21:07] Speaker 2: of details. Utson was persuaded to hurry the very last
[21:13] Speaker 2: mile of his journey. While flying from Tahiti to Sydney,
[21:17] Speaker 2: the DC seven Airliners radio crackled into life with an invitation.
[21:23] Speaker 2: Her Majesty the Queen was on the Royal Yacht in
[21:26] Speaker 2: Sydney Harbor and mister Udson was invited to lunch. After touchdown,
[21:35] Speaker 2: he dashed to the Royal reception. Arab's man on the
[21:39] Speaker 2: ground wasn't impressed.
[21:42] Speaker 4: Lo and behold, God appears from heaven.
[21:46] Speaker 2: Hutson had descended from Tahiti, popped in for lunch with
[21:49] Speaker 2: the Queen, and then grumbled. The Aurup engineer.
[21:53] Speaker 4: In the afternoon, he comes onto the site and starts
[21:56] Speaker 4: complaining about some things he wasn't informed about. I mean,
[21:59] Speaker 4: there was no one we could contact.
[22:03] Speaker 2: Four months later, July nineteen sixty three, the Opera House
[22:08] Speaker 2: was scheduled to have been finished, yet the site on
[22:12] Speaker 2: Benelong Point was still just a huge, flat sprawl of concrete.
[22:18] Speaker 2: The basic outline of the broad low podium was visible,
[22:22] Speaker 2: with the structure of the two sunken theaters scooped out
[22:26] Speaker 2: of it. There was no sign of walls, let alone
[22:29] Speaker 2: the roof. In his history of the project, The Saga
[22:35] Speaker 2: of Sydney Opera House, architectural writer Peter Murray combs to
[22:40] Speaker 2: the letters between Uber Arup and Jan Utson and finds
[22:44] Speaker 2: two men whose relationship is slowly falling apart. Utson worried
[22:50] Speaker 2: that Arup was trying to take control and steal the credit.
[22:54] Speaker 2: Arup was eyeing the exits. Here's Arup.
[22:59] Speaker 4: I do not know whether you have thought of getting
[23:01] Speaker 4: other engineers to help you. I would welcome the idea
[23:05] Speaker 4: of someone else solving the problems and sing your method
[23:10] Speaker 4: of working.
[23:12] Speaker 2: Utsen responded, dear uver, please desist from your criticism.
[23:17] Speaker 3: Management is in a way the easiest part of the job,
[23:20] Speaker 3: something which most people can learn.
[23:25] Speaker 1: Well.
[23:26] Speaker 2: Perhaps nobody doubted Utsen's genius as an architect, but as
[23:32] Speaker 2: deadline after deadline was being broken, this was no time
[23:36] Speaker 2: to be taking management for granted. The mega project expert
[23:44] Speaker 2: Bent Flubier argues that the longer the construction phase of
[23:49] Speaker 2: a project lasts, the more time there is for something
[23:53] Speaker 2: to derail everything. He's right. In May nineteen sixty five,
[24:00] Speaker 2: two years after the Opera House was supposed to have
[24:03] Speaker 2: been finished, there was a state election in New South Wales.
[24:08] Speaker 2: The backdrop for this election was an expensive and manifestly
[24:13] Speaker 2: unfinished building. The roofshells had at last been built, soaring
[24:18] Speaker 2: above the podium and the waters of the harbor, but
[24:22] Speaker 2: they were bare concrete. The epic job of tiling them
[24:26] Speaker 2: had hardly begun. The site was open to the elements,
[24:30] Speaker 2: since the spectacular glass curtain wall facing out over the
[24:34] Speaker 2: harbor was still just a structural problem on Utson's drawing board,
[24:41] Speaker 2: and so the populist Opposition party campaigned on a promise
[24:45] Speaker 2: to clean up the mess at the Opera House. Although
[24:50] Speaker 2: the project was funded mostly by proceeds from the state lottery,
[24:54] Speaker 2: rather than taxes. It was hugely over budget, and conservative
[24:59] Speaker 2: rural voters had started to wonder why that lottery money
[25:02] Speaker 2: couldn't be spent on something else, such as more roads, schools,
[25:08] Speaker 2: and hospitals. When the Opposition won, the job of Minister
[25:13] Speaker 2: for Public Works went to a politician named Davis Hughes.
[25:19] Speaker 2: Hughes was a controversial choice, and not only because he'd
[25:23] Speaker 2: recently become notorious for falsely claiming to have a bachelor's
[25:27] Speaker 2: degree in job applications. When he was put in charge
[25:31] Speaker 2: of this vast construction project, his wife laughingly remarked that
[25:36] Speaker 2: he couldn't drive a nail in straight. In the first
[25:39] Speaker 2: six months of his tenure, Hughes struggled to get a grip.
[25:43] Speaker 1: To his frustration.
[25:45] Speaker 2: Spending on the opera house ballooned more than ever. By
[25:50] Speaker 2: the start of nineteen sixty six, nine years after Utson
[25:55] Speaker 2: had become famous around the world for winning the design competition,
[25:59] Speaker 2: Hughes was ready for a showdown. He began withholding payments
[26:04] Speaker 2: to Utson, demanding more oversight and more control. Without the money,
[26:10] Speaker 2: Utson couldn't pay his staff. He was already in financial
[26:15] Speaker 2: trouble because both Denmark and Australia were arguing that he
[26:20] Speaker 2: should be paying his taxes to them. Was Davis Hughes
[26:24] Speaker 2: deliberately undermining Utson or was he imposing some much needed discipline.
[26:31] Speaker 2: Whatever the aim, the result was predictable. Whover Aup could
[26:36] Speaker 2: see what was coming. He wrote to Utson urging him
[26:39] Speaker 2: not to resign, telling him that resigning would solve nothing.
[26:43] Speaker 2: But Arab's letter didn't arrive in time to warn Utson
[26:47] Speaker 2: to be careful what he said. After a tense meeting
[26:51] Speaker 2: with Hughes, Utson sent a letter explaining that by cutting
[26:55] Speaker 2: off the money, you have forced me to leave the job.
[27:00] Speaker 2: Hutson later said that he was just pausing work for
[27:04] Speaker 2: lack of funds and that quitting was never his intention,
[27:08] Speaker 2: But Davis Hughes didn't see any ambiguity. He promptly announced
[27:14] Speaker 2: to the State Assembly that Jorn Utson had resigned. Cautionary
[27:22] Speaker 2: tales will return in a moment. Utson's departure was announced
[27:32] Speaker 2: on the first of March nineteen sixty six, almost exactly
[27:37] Speaker 2: seven years after construction had begun. Despite all the project's troubles,
[27:43] Speaker 2: it was a bombshell.
[27:45] Speaker 1: By now.
[27:46] Speaker 2: The curved shells were almost fully tiled. The shimmering effect
[27:51] Speaker 2: looked spectacular. Protesters gathered at the half finished structure on
[27:57] Speaker 2: Benelong Point, waving signs save the Opera House and we
[28:02] Speaker 2: need Utson. The Royal Australian Institute of Architects told Davis
[28:07] Speaker 2: Hughes him back. No prominent architect would touch the Opera
[28:13] Speaker 2: House project after Utson's acrimonious departure. It was a matter
[28:17] Speaker 2: of professional solidarity. The engineer Uber Aup did not resign.
[28:25] Speaker 2: Utson saw this as a betrayal. He stopped returning. Arab's
[28:30] Speaker 2: calls up Hand wrote an emotional letter to Utson, urging
[28:35] Speaker 2: him to come back and offering to broke her a
[28:37] Speaker 2: compromise with Davis Hughes. Couldn't Uber and Yawn at least
[28:42] Speaker 2: meet for a chat, he signed off.
[28:45] Speaker 4: Even if you don't trust me, it couldn't do any harm,
[28:48] Speaker 4: could it. The situation can't get any worse, so why
[28:51] Speaker 4: not try?
[28:53] Speaker 1: Utson replied the same day.
[28:56] Speaker 3: If you think I should be in charge of the project,
[28:59] Speaker 3: then act accordingly, he wrote. Tell the Minister that Utson
[29:02] Speaker 3: must be in charge.
[29:05] Speaker 2: Utson returned to Denmark, still thinking about all the remaining
[29:09] Speaker 2: challenges on the project, such as how to fit more
[29:12] Speaker 2: seats into the hall. He expected that Davis Hughes would
[29:17] Speaker 2: come crawling back, in part because he couldn't imagine anyone
[29:22] Speaker 2: else being capable of finishing the job.
[29:25] Speaker 3: I am still available. It is not I, but the
[29:29] Speaker 3: Sydney Opera House that creates all of the enormous difficulties.
[29:33] Speaker 2: But Davis Hughes wasn't the type to back down. If
[29:37] Speaker 2: no prominent architect would take the job, it just had
[29:41] Speaker 2: to get one nobody had heard of. He called in
[29:44] Speaker 2: a young local government architect named Peter Hall and handed
[29:49] Speaker 2: him the task of finishing the opera House. All did so,
[29:54] Speaker 2: taking seven more years and three times as much money
[29:58] Speaker 2: as had already been spent. The Opera House cost fifteen
[30:03] Speaker 2: times the original budget. Admittedly, the original budget was always
[30:08] Speaker 2: a fiction, and it was completed a decade behind schedule.
[30:14] Speaker 2: Jorn Utsen wasn't the type to back down either. Years later,
[30:19] Speaker 2: Uva Arup asked a mutual friend to try to arrange
[30:23] Speaker 2: a reconciliation. Maybe he and Utson could meet and talk
[30:27] Speaker 2: things over. They drove to Utson's hometown and Arup sat
[30:33] Speaker 2: in a hotel lobby, nursing a coffee and waiting. The
[30:39] Speaker 2: friend returned. Utson didn't want to see arup. There would
[30:45] Speaker 2: be no reconciliation. The opera House was officially opened by
[30:53] Speaker 2: Queen Elizabeth on the twentieth of October nineteen seventy three.
[31:00] Speaker 2: Jorn Utson declined his invitation to attend, which was perhaps
[31:05] Speaker 2: just as well. The Queen's speech, written by local politicians,
[31:10] Speaker 2: didn't mention Utson's name. The plaque she unveiled celebrated young
[31:16] Speaker 2: Peter Hall and Davis Hughes. In his book How Big
[31:24] Speaker 2: Things Get Done, Bent Flubier describes what happened when star
[31:30] Speaker 2: architect Frank Geary was asked to come to bill Bao
[31:34] Speaker 2: to work on a building. Unlike the young, unknown Utson,
[31:39] Speaker 2: Geary was sixty two years old, battle hardened by some
[31:43] Speaker 2: painful political fights over his buildings, and famous Bill Boo's
[31:49] Speaker 2: officials showed him a beautiful old warehouse, and they asked
[31:54] Speaker 2: him if he would consider renovating it to become a
[31:57] Speaker 2: new Guggenheim Museum. Why, asked Geary, what are you trying
[32:03] Speaker 2: to achieve? In Sydney, nobody had really formulated those questions,
[32:10] Speaker 2: let alone answered them, But in Bilbao they knew what
[32:14] Speaker 2: they wanted. They wanted to get by design what Sydney
[32:19] Speaker 2: had got by accident, an icon. Bill Bao was the
[32:25] Speaker 2: Detroit of Southern Europe, a once great city ravaged by
[32:29] Speaker 2: the industrialization. The local government wanted the new museum to
[32:34] Speaker 2: spark an urban renaissance, to put Bilbao on the map,
[32:39] Speaker 2: just as Sydney Opera House had put Sydney on the map. Fine,
[32:43] Speaker 2: said Geary. In that case, forget the renovation project. You're
[32:49] Speaker 2: going to have to do what Sydney did and build
[32:52] Speaker 2: something breath taking and new. You're going to have to
[32:55] Speaker 2: put it on the waterfront. And in fact, added Geary,
[33:00] Speaker 2: I've seen just the spot. When Geary's Guggenheim Bilbao was
[33:05] Speaker 2: finally opened, it was a huge success, on time and
[33:11] Speaker 2: under budget. According to Flubiere's data on mega projects, that
[33:16] Speaker 2: sort of thing doesn't happen a lot. But the fact
[33:20] Speaker 2: that it happened at all is because Geary started with
[33:23] Speaker 2: a clearly agreed plan and nobody rushed to start digging.
[33:32] Speaker 2: These days, everybody seems to want one of those iconic buildings.
[33:38] Speaker 2: Frank Geary made it look easy, after all. But the
[33:41] Speaker 2: Sydney Opera House was the first and the greatest and
[33:46] Speaker 2: the most painful. In spite of everything, the Opera House
[33:52] Speaker 2: is a masterpiece. I've been lucky enough to see it,
[33:56] Speaker 2: to stroll around the Sydney Harbor, admiring all the angles,
[34:00] Speaker 2: to walk up the grand steps of the podium on
[34:03] Speaker 2: Benelong Point. I've even performed on the stage. It's breathtaking,
[34:09] Speaker 2: all of it. No camera can do it justice. In
[34:14] Speaker 2: the entire twentieth century, only the Empire State Building comes
[34:18] Speaker 2: close to serving as an icon of a city. The
[34:22] Speaker 2: Sydney Opera House is like the Eiffel Tower or the Pyramids.
[34:25] Speaker 2: It's repaid its debt to the citizens of the city
[34:29] Speaker 2: many times over. So you might think, who cares that
[34:33] Speaker 2: it was late? Who cares what it cost? It was
[34:36] Speaker 2: all worth it in the end. But bent Flubieer disagrees.
[34:42] Speaker 2: The process of building the Opera House was a fiasco,
[34:46] Speaker 2: and that fiasco had a cost that you can't measure
[34:49] Speaker 2: in delays or in dollars. The cost starts with Yawn
[34:54] Speaker 2: Utsen's reputation. Utson was told that because he had resigned,
[35:00] Speaker 2: he'd never get a government project in Denmark. He taught
[35:04] Speaker 2: for a while in Hawaii and anonymously designed some buildings
[35:08] Speaker 2: for a freeh m's architecture practice. He did win a
[35:12] Speaker 2: commission to design something big in Kuwait, but Saddam Hussein's
[35:16] Speaker 2: army set fire to that. In nineteen ninety one, in
[35:20] Speaker 2: a Copenhagen suburb, he built a humbled church. It's unprepossessing
[35:26] Speaker 2: on the outside, but on the inside there's a gorgeous
[35:30] Speaker 2: ceiling that looks like folds of cloth parting to reveal
[35:34] Speaker 2: the light of heaven. Apparently it had something similar in
[35:38] Speaker 2: mind for the interior of the Opera House, but nobody
[35:42] Speaker 2: wanted to give him another chance to display his genius
[35:45] Speaker 2: on the stage. It deserved the price of the Sydney
[35:49] Speaker 2: Opera House. It was all those other buildings that Jorn
[35:54] Speaker 2: Utsuen was never allowed to design. Eventually, the architecture profession
[36:02] Speaker 2: woke up and began showering prizes on him, often acknowledging
[36:07] Speaker 2: regretfully that Utzon hadn't built much besides the opera House,
[36:13] Speaker 2: but it was too late to change that. When he
[36:16] Speaker 2: won architecture's nobel prize, the Pritzker, he was eighty five
[36:21] Speaker 2: years old. The Opera House itself had started to become
[36:26] Speaker 2: embarrassed by the controversy and that graceless plaque that didn't
[36:31] Speaker 2: even mention Utson's name. In the nineteen nineties, they attempted
[36:36] Speaker 2: a raproschemo, naming a room in his honor and asking
[36:40] Speaker 2: him to help design a new wing. Still he didn't come.
[36:46] Speaker 2: He sent his son to give a speech explaining that
[36:49] Speaker 2: his elderly father.
[36:52] Speaker 4: Lives and breathes the Opera House, and as its creator,
[36:56] Speaker 4: he just has to close his eyes to see it.
[37:03] Speaker 2: One person who sneered at the peacemaking was Davis Hughes,
[37:09] Speaker 2: old man like Utson himself. He phoned the chairman of
[37:13] Speaker 2: the Opera House management team and ranted for forty five
[37:16] Speaker 2: minutes about the very idea of asking Utson his opinion
[37:20] Speaker 2: on anything.
[37:22] Speaker 3: I did Utson a favor, he said. I put him
[37:25] Speaker 3: out of his misery like you put down a dog.
[37:29] Speaker 2: Late in Utson's life, a British architect named John Pardy
[37:35] Speaker 2: went to visit him in Mayorka, where he had spent
[37:38] Speaker 2: most of his later years. It was a kind of
[37:41] Speaker 2: pilgrimage to meet one of the true greats of architecture.
[37:45] Speaker 2: Utson had designed the home, of course, and Pardy described.
[37:49] Speaker 4: Its Glarefrey hush that seemed to transport me to another world.
[37:56] Speaker 2: They talked about this and that the old man expressed
[38:00] Speaker 2: the occasional pain at the Opera House affair.
[38:04] Speaker 3: But this was all a long time.
[38:07] Speaker 1: Ago, he said.
[38:10] Speaker 2: Utson had never been back to Sydney. He'd designed the
[38:15] Speaker 2: most beautiful building of the twentieth century, and he had
[38:20] Speaker 2: never seen it. Sensing that Utson had left some part
[38:25] Speaker 2: of his heart in Sydney, Pardy offered to help the
[38:29] Speaker 2: old man travel back. Utson's wife pulled Pardy aside. That
[38:36] Speaker 2: wasn't possible. She said it would kill him. Did she
[38:41] Speaker 2: mean the arduous journey or did she mean the memories.
[38:55] Speaker 2: Important sources for this episode were The House by Helen
[38:59] Speaker 2: Pitt and the Saga of Sydney Opera House by Peter Murray.
[39:04] Speaker 2: If you're interested in Bent, Flubier and mega projects, I
[39:07] Speaker 2: have a three Parts is on the V two Rocket program.
[39:12] Speaker 2: It's available to subscribers on pushkin Plus. For a full
[39:16] Speaker 2: list of our sources, please see the show notes at
[39:19] Speaker 2: Timharford dot com. Cautionary Tales is written by me Tim
[39:25] Speaker 2: Harford with Andrew Wright. It's produced by Alice Fines with
[39:29] Speaker 2: support from Edith Ruslow. The sound design and original music
[39:34] Speaker 2: is the work of Pascal Wise. Sarah Nix edited the scripts.
[39:40] Speaker 2: Cautionary Tales features the voice talents of rufus Wright, Melanie Guttridge,
[39:44] Speaker 2: Ben Crowe, Stella Harford and Jemma Saunders. The show wouldn't
[39:50] Speaker 2: have been possible without the work of Jacob Weisberg, Ryan Dilly,
[39:54] Speaker 2: Greta Cohene, Leitel Millard, John Schnaz, Carlie mcgliori and Eric Sandler.
[40:00] Speaker 2: Cautionary Tales is a production of Pushkin Industries. It was
[40:04] Speaker 2: recorded in Wardall Studios in London by Tom Berry. If
[40:07] Speaker 2: you like the show, please remember to share, rate and
[40:10] Speaker 2: review go on you know it helps us and if
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[40:16] Speaker 2: for Pushkin Plus on the show page in Apple Podcasts
[40:20] Speaker 2: or at pushkin dot fm, slash plus

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