jørn utzon, 1918-2008

Sydney

That's it on the right.  Those -- what would you call them?  Shells?  Flaps?  They seem to be moving, no?  Falling into the harbor, or crawling out?  Trying to fly, maybe?  Mammalian?  Avian?  Crustacean?

It's the Sydney Opera House, and its original architect, Jørn Utzon, passed away today at 90.  The Los Angeles Times obituary does a fine, concise job. 

Is there any narrative about modern Australian culture that cannot be found in the long, sad story of this building?  First, the deference to European greatness that led to hiring Utzon in the first place.  Then, the blowback against same, the resentment of the big-thinking foreigner with the funny name, come to tell us how to build an opera house.  From there, inevitably, the almost comic non-communication between the cerebral European architect and the local cultures of building and design.  The political backstabbing so intense that Utzon not only left the project, but left Australia for the last time in 1966, long before the building was finished, and thus never saw it completed.

Today, its failures are as transcendent as its brilliance.  Utzon had no hand in the interiors, and these are nothing special.  As one friend warned me: "Australia has one great opera house; the outside is in Sydney and the inside is in Melbourne."  The acoustics are chancy.  The two large performance halls are typical boxes that offer no sense of being inside the surrounding shells.  The orchestra pit is intimate.  There are no wings to speak of: a performer exiting the stage at any speed is running straight toward a wall a few feet away; often, staff must be there to catch them. 

In the end, I suppose there's some truth to the slur by Davis Hughes, the public works director at the time, that Utzon was "a sculptor, not an architect."  When I see the Opera House, I don't think of opera.  Utzon's shells could just have well been built over the tram terminus that used to be on the site.  What I see is great civic sculpture in an endless intriguing and erotic dialogue with the site, the harbor, the bridge, and the city.   It is one of the first modernist buildings that could be called playful or mysterious -- in a world where cities desperately need more play, and more mystery. 

It makes me want to play, too.  It's a measure of the resilience of the building that there is no truly bad angle on it. Even when I try to catch some unintended glimpse -- like looking for the wires at the circus -- Utzon's sculpture seems to bear my curiosity, and maybe wink at me a bit.

Comments

[Denis Wilson]

Great post.
Great architect, great building, but, as you say, not really an Opera House, in functionality.

As for "no bad angles" - what about the Toast Rack smack in behind it? Admittedly that is a separate building, but it certainly blights the transcendence of the Opera House.

Utzon will be remembered long after the idiots who blocked his vision from being completed.

As for his "lifelong pout", (what I would call a "World-class Dummy Spit") actually only serves to endear the man to me. He did agree to work, with his son, on the plans for the interior renovation, but still refused to come back to see it "in the flesh", as it were.

Denis

[dale]

:-) I've seen the building so often, in views of the city, but I never knew any of its story. Great post.

[Philip Gleeson]

I remember watching a documentary about the building of the opera house where it was claimed that Utzon's original design was more than just playful sculpture but a daring design where the very form of shells were to create the acoustics of the interior, forming immense parabolic lenses to focus the sound within. I'm no architect, but in that context, the current slapdash interiors are indeed a tragedy. However it's easy to understand how the massive budget blow-out from $A7 million to $A100 million might stretch the patience of any patron.

[Jarrett at HumanTransit.org]

Thanks for the comments.

Denis -- I agree that there are bad angles on the building's context, though I honestly don't hate the Toast Rack as much as we're all supposed to.

Philip -- Yes, even in the public transport industry, where I work, a truly humiliating, career-destroying cost blowout on a major rail project might be something like +200% -- i.e. a final cost of triple the estimated one. The +1400% blowout on the Opera House remains an important part of the building's legend, and earned it its chapter in Peter Hall's Great Planning Disasters. It was indeed a world-class blowout for a world-class city.

[Dan Hill]

Nice post Jarrett. I'd also recommend anyone interested in the design process here should check out Peter Jones's biography of Ove Arup. You'll get a richer view of what actually happened there ... Let's just say there appears to be more to the (design process) story than is usually told. As for the cost, I reckon it will have paid for itself *at least* 1400 times over (not just for itself, but for Sydney, for Australia etc.) ... While not excusing poor management, that's one of the other issues this story gives us - how do you actually measure the cost and value of a building?

[Teresa]

They are reptilian. The upper hump of that stegesaurus guy whatever its called now. What an interesting post, Jarrett. I always learn reading you.

The building is playful indeed. I wonder if, climbing it, Philippe Petit was impelled to slide down any of the "flaps" or find out what was inside the troughs between.

T.

[Paris Hotels]

I've seen the building so often, in views of the city, but I never knew any of its story. It was really to nice to read this post. Now i am really very much excited to visit this place. I hope i wll go very soon.