Chapter 17: 1964-1966, Perfection Lost, Part 2
In 1964, as the months passed, Arups' lead engineer Michael Lewis' doubts about Utzon's ability to deliver the great volume of drawings required for Stage 3 grew. And he voiced his concerns to Zunz, Arup and the Public Works Minister, Ryan.
The Minister now tried to assuage political concern about rising costs and lack of visible progress by appointing Bill Wood, a government architect, to provide reconnaissance while he worked in Utzon's office for the remainder of the project. Michael Lewis would describe Bill Wood as tiresome and baffled by Utzon.
Ted Farmer, the Government Architect: "[The Director of the Public Works Department] got one of my staff and put them in as a sort of spy down there to see if he could find out what was going on."
On April 17th 1964, Utzon's eldest brother Leif died suddenly of a heart attack in Paris. Jørn left for Europe to help his sister-in-law and her three children return to Denmark. He was away for about six weeks, and would return to heightened levels of stress surrounding the opera house project. Utzon's daughter Lin later recalled how even before Leif's death it was a worrying time for her father, whom she saw little of.
Utzon returned to Australia in early June. The extent to which Leif's death affected him is perhaps revealed in his move later that year to Palm Beach. There, he set up a new studio completely removed from the intensity of the site office on Bennelong Point. The peace he attained in his new surroundings, to some extent, would recall the tranquillity of Hellebk.
By July, in response to a new cost estimate of $17.4 million, Ryan declared that costs were to be capped at the previous year's estimate of $12.5 million, and that the architect would have to work within these constraints. It was a declaration that reflected on the Government's poor comprehension of the commission, and reinforced Ryan's admission to Cahill that he didn't understand the opera house.
Michael Lewis once again suggested to Utzon that he establish a drawing office to liaise with the architect to complete the volume of drawings required. Once again Utzon rejected the suggestion, as he had when it was raised by Osmond Jarvis in 1960, this time stating that the great architects of the previous generation Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe, Alvar Aalto and Frank Lloyd Wright had tried similar arrangements and failed.
In a meeting with Government ministers on the 23rd July 1964, Utzon was summarily dressed down by New South Wales Premier Renshaw, Pat Hills, the serving Lord Mayor of Sydney and Deputy Leader, and Minister Ryan, amongst others.
Lewis was particularly surprised by Hills' manner who was overtly rude and dismissive of Utzon. While the executive committee treated Utzon with respect, as someone of superior talents and abilities in charge of a highly significant cultural project, the ministers had no such regard and instead dealt with the architect as if he were merely a supplier of increasingly unsatisfactory services and a persistent drain on public funds, for which they were accountable.
Lewis letter to Arups London: "I have just returned from a most unpleasant interview with the Premier and various ministers."
Each increase in expenditure had to be raised in Parliament. The opera house would always be an easy target for the opposition and the media to use against the incumbent party.
After the stressful meeting with the Ministers, Utzon told Lewis over lunch that he thought he might resign.
Intensely private as always, Utzon was perhaps weighing the values in his life. He had been hounded all year by an overtly critical and newly vexatious client. His relationship with Michael Lewis and Arups in general was no longer the ideal of previous years, and while his creation was now starting to take form, he was being asked to redesign its interiors in a way that utterly compromised the vision towards which he and his architects had been working in previous years.
From November on, Utzon would spend most of his time at the Palm Beach boat shed, keeping only a skeleton team on site at Bennelong Point, travelling to. the city only twice a week. Whilst Utzon continued to work at his own pace, the arrangement gave weight to the perception of too little progress.
Utzon refused to install a phone at the boat shed. There was instead a poster on the wall of an exploded phone whose caption said that if it could be put together it could call anyone in the world. Utzon may have derived some pleasure from the irony, but the inability to contact him would only worsen his relationships with engineers and builders on site.
By January 1965, following Utzon's return from holiday, Norm Ryan conducted another meeting barely veiling his anger and frustration and demanding progress from Utzon.
A week later, Utzon produced a 'descriptive narrative' in response to the Minister's complaint that there were still no completed drawings detailing Stage 3. In it, Utzon explained that the designs could not be finalised without further prototypes, which could only be made by Ralph Symmonds, the plywood manufacturers Utzon had worked with to create the ceilings of the major and minor halls. Symmonds in turn needed assurance that they would be nominated as sub-contractors for the ceiling work.
Bill Wood's assessment of the Descriptive Narrative, to the Director of Public Works, 22 February 1965: "It is abundantly evident that a vast amount of work remains to be done in the form of dimensioned and working drawings and specifications. The information contained in the narrative description is interesting and enlightening but totally inadequate to permit the quantity surveyors to make more than an approximate estimate of cost. In order to prepare the necessary drawings and other data the Architect needs a staff of some 30 persons to cope with the situation."
But despite his increasing involvement with the opera house project from the start of the year, Ryan's attention was diverted away from its complex problems by looming State elections.
Then on the 1st of May, after 24 years in power, Labor was defeated by a coalition of Liberal and Country Parties and Ryan was swept from office, to be replaced by Davis Hughes, as new Minister for Public Works.
For Utzon, it was the beginning of the end.
