Chapter 19: 1966, Malice in Blunderland
By early 1966, when Davis Hughes announced he had accepted Jørn Utzon's resignation, three years had passed since the architect began living and working in Sydney.
Now he was on the verge of leaving the country for good, having lost the confidence of his client. Utzon had been contemplating his withdrawal from the project for at least a year. He might not, however, have anticipated the immediate and intense reaction to it.
National and international associates, famous architects, friends and strangers alike were calling for his return and many supporters took to the streets in protest. To some, the treatment meted out to Utzon was indicative of a wider social malaise that prevailed in Australia, and his creative battles symbolised the increasing irrelevance of so many Establishment values.
Broader ethical, social and political questions were being raised at the time, and alongside the generational division of sentiment about the Vietnam War, Utzon's treatment became another cause for tension and dissent.
Within two days of the announcement, the architect Harry Seidler and Hall Missingham, Director of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, had rallied other architects, students, intellectuals and labourers into the streets, congregating at Bennelong Point for speeches, and marching to Parliament House to deliver a petition of 3000 names to Premier Askin that called for Utzon's reinstatement. Patrick White and Denis Winston, Dean of Architecture at Sydney University, led the march alongside Seidler and Missingham.
Utzon described the protest as "Marvellous".
Quote from Sydney Architect, Bruce Rikard: "No one can replace Mr Utzon, the perfectionist with fantastic integrity... No consortium, no committee, has ever or ever will create a work of art."
The different forms of dissent and protest proved to be a further example of the generational divide. Younger architects saw the behaviour of their superiors as outrageously outdated. The government architect, Ted Farmer, seen as instrumental to Utzon's demise, was regarded as having compromised both a great work of art and its visionary architect on a grand scale.
"The only architect technically and ethically able to complete the Opera House as it should be completed" - quote from the petition signed by 75 of the 85 Government Architects, Public Works Department, written by Ted Mack, Architect (later Mayor, North Sydney and known as 'father of the independents').
Ted Farmer, meanwhile, saw himself as having brought a project into line that was out of control, both in terms of time and expenditure. He conceded that Utzon had received a poorly structured brief to which he had responded with integrity only to be then rejected by the Government client.
Seventy five of the eighty five architects under his direction at the Public Works Department signed a petition against Utzon's removal. Farmer stood before them in tears of dismay and anger at their unprofessional behaviour.
The idea of Sydney Opera House had, for almost a decade now, been a powerful symbol of cultural aspiration; now it also embodied an ideological rift between the old and the new in Australia.
Throughout this time, Utzon maintained publically that he was the only man to finish the job. But behind this outward conviction and brinkmanship, he was conflicted about returning to the job under the government's new terms as a subordinated design consultant, letting go entirely, or being reinstated somehow to complete the beautifully crafted modern cathedral that the building so powerfully evoked. Utzon warned Hughes that the architects who took over in his absence would be starting from zero and coming straight back to the minister 'as soon as they realised the difficulties'.
Quote from Utzon: "It would seem I am merely to prepare designs in accordance with instructions and leave it to others to supervise construction. Such a proposal is not only unpractical but quite unacceptable to me. I am at all times prepared to work with them as your representatives, but not under them... It is not I but the Sydney Opera House that creates all the enormous difficulties."
Despite the unfolding drama, building work continued unabated and Stage 2 neared completion. Once the final tile lids were in place and the stunning impact of their finish had been revealed, the cranes stopped and the site was at a standstill for two years. Only then did the 3rd Stage begin, and in the absence of the original author.
Utzon had only minor victories in the final stages of his negotiations with the government. He was shown a diagram that depicted him out on a limb in the hierarchy of Hughes' new program. He demanded outstanding payment for his staff. He had told his staff not to find new work but - believing he would be reinstated - to wait for him to be returned to the job.
While the payment to staff was granted immediately by Hughes, the nine points Utzon had insisted upon for his own reinstatement was met only with rejection.
By March 28, exactly one month since Utzon had written to Hughes saying that he was being forced to leave, the struggle to finalise his reinstatement was over and the Government decided to go its own way.
On the 28th of April, Jørn Utzon and his family flew out of Sydney in secrecy. Neither he nor his wife Lis would ever return to Australia. Stopping in the Yucatan he revisited to the Mayan temples that had so deeply inspired his vision for Bennelong Point.
Postcard from Jørn Utzon to Bill Wheatland, May 1966: "Went to Yucatan. The ruins are wonderful. So why worry? Sydney Opera House becomes a ruin one day."
The Arups engineers had remained out of the public debate as much as possible, focusing on finishing Stage 2 and declining all opportunities to talk to the press. Letters continued to fly across the world between Michael Lewis, Jack Zunz and Ove Arup, eloquently capturing the mood of regret as they witnessed Utzon finally succumb to the weight of events.
Both Zunz and Arup continued to reached out to Utzon but for now, at least, the bridge between them had collapsed.
It was the end of an extraordinarily dramatic period in many peoples' lives, but none felt its impact more than Jørn Utzon and Ove Arup.
For Utzon the sense of loss and disappointment would understandably endure for many years. He had, a decade before, been very surprised to have won the competition, and though young and inexperienced, he had risen to the occasion. He had brought an unmistakable genius to the project which endures in the finished building today.
Yet his relentless pursuit of perfection had gradually been abandoned by all around him until the endeavour had become impossible. Utzon withdrew from the building project as an artist unwilling to compromise his vision or contemplate anything less than his imagined ideal. And he never wished to set eyes upon the imperfect result.
Ove Arup believed that in Utzon he had found the perfect architect with whom to collaborate in his personal quest for 'Total Architecture', an approach which dissolved the disconnect between engineers and architects that he had been seeking his whole career.
Arup felt it was the conflict within Utzon himself that led to the series of unraveling events, a view that demonstrates Arup's misunderstanding of the influence his own presence and absence had on the project.
Years later, Povl Ahm, a mutual friend of both men, took Arup to Hellebk. Leaving Arup in the hotel room, he went alone to see Utzon at his home. Utzon refused to see Arup.
The two men met one last time in 1978, at a reception in London for Utzon, who had won the Royal Gold Medal for Architecture. They shook hands and spoke a few words, but far from being a moment of reconciliation, the exchange was instead characterised by the profound loss experienced by both men.
