In 1955 the New South Wales government launched an international competition for an opera house on Bennelong Point, pushed by Eugene Goossens, chief conductor of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. It drew 233 entries from 32 countries. Danish architect Jørn Utzon submitted sketchy, diagrammatic drawings inspired by bird wings, clouds, walnut shells, and palm leaves, and the judges’ own reports called them simple to the point of being diagrams. Finnish-American architect Eero Saarinen, arriving late, is said to have pulled the entry from the rejected pile and championed it. Fearing the project would be cancelled, the government forced construction to start in March 1959, before the roof was designed, and parts of the podium later had to be blown up and rebuilt stronger.

From 1957 to 1963 Utzon and engineers at Ove Arup & Partners struggled with the shell geometry, until they designed every sail as a section of a single sphere, letting the ribs be cast from common molds, with Ferranti Pegasus computers running the stress calculations. In 1965 Premier Robert Askin’s public works minister Davis Hughes demanded open tenders and withheld Utzon’s fees until he was owed over 100,000 dollars. When Utzon threatened to resign in February 1966, Hughes accepted, and Utzon left Australia. The building opened in October 1973 at a cost of 102 million dollars against an estimate of about 7 million.

• Utzon wanted to work directly with manufacturer Ralph Symonds on the plywood interiors, which clashed with blind bidding
• Utzon called the ordeal malice in blunderland
• Peter Hall, who had signed a petition to reinstate Utzon, took over despite Utzon warning him he could not finish it
• Hall split concert and opera into separate halls, leaving a cramped orchestra pit and ripping out stage machinery as scrap
• Utzon won the Pritzker Prize in 2003, the Utzon Room opened to his design in 2004, and he died in 2008 without returning