Commemorative occasions are often draped in fatty platitudes.\u00a0 Within such platitudes lie excuses and apologies.\u00a0 People are celebrated after the fact, not for their faults but for their virtues.\u00a0 It\u2019s just the polite thing to do.\u00a0 At the time of their achievement, they were ridiculed, condemned, and flayed.\u00a0 Buildings are also remembered, not for the blemishes they caused or the arguments they ignited, but the fact that they were (the pun is irresistible) foundational.\u00a0 After the fact, they stand as glorious fragments of culture.<\/p>\n
Much of this can be seen in the horrendously treacle-covered slurry about the Sydney Opera House, which was opened on October 20, 1973 by Queen Elizabeth II.\u00a0 After 50 years, it is arguably the most internationally recognisable symbol of Australia, leaving aside its astonishing collection of natural wonders.<\/p>\n
The current tributes never deviate from admiration verging on wince worthy worship.\u00a0 The ABC News Breakfast program diligently cobbled together a montage of events, performances and celebrations, with the edifice as star performer.\u00a0 No mention of controversy; not mention of the efforts to kill it off.\u00a0 For those versed in public relations, the following proved mandatory: The House functions as a multi-venue performing arts centre, hosting 1,500 performances each year receiving audiences of 1.2 million people.\u00a0 The site around the building is visited by almost eight times that many people, with 350,000 taking guided tours around it.<\/p>\n
The administrative wonks have also made sure to court and flatter artists to add their ingredients to the commemorative cake.\u00a0 Nuance is not the name of the game here.\u00a0 \u201cI adore the Opera House,\u201d says<\/a> Australian singer and composer Tim Minchin.\u00a0 Minchin can be relied upon to give us the sacerdotal worship befitting a son of the sunburnt land: \u201cplaying in and around this beautiful building\u201d; doing so being \u201cone of the great honours of my creative life\u201d and, naturally, feeling \u201chugely flattered\u201d when asked to write a celebratory piece for the five decade anniversary.\u00a0 He sees this edifice as a reminder to Australians \u201cthat our not-entirely-mythological \u2018larrikin\u2019 spirit is the same spirit that allows us to be bold and brave and not care too much what other people think.\u201d<\/p>\n This is sad nonsense.\u00a0 It was brave to initially embark on the construction of a daring design, but there was little bravery in the construction phase of the Opera House, much of it marked by spite and exploitation.\u00a0 And as for the larrikin spirit, Minchin is only right in so far as the decision to commence the project had much to do with a premier who felt that the city needed an Opera House as much as his party needed a change of image.\u00a0 (The Australian Labor Party could be cultured too!)\u00a0 The rest was up to a daring, immutably haughty Dane, and every imaginable obstacle put in his path.<\/p>\n Architecturally, the building is seen as a modernist expressionist masterpiece, one that germinated in the mind of architect J\u00f8rn Utzon who worked, not without difficulty, alongside the engineering exploits of Ove Arup.\u00a0 In what can only be seen as a feat of unintended inspiration, the building was the result of Utzon\u2019s winning design in 1957. His controversial, baffling genius led to the creation of a singular roof structure inspired by the peeling of an orange.\u00a0 In terms of construction, the sail, or wing-like structure, is constituted of precast concrete panels which are, in turn, bolstered by precast concrete ribs.<\/p>\n But genius, notably when it comes to architecture, only functions in a narrow range, frail before global assault, rival designers and accountants.\u00a0 It is viewed with abundant suspicion by the political and administrative mind, even more so by the budgetary minded.\u00a0 Utzon proved no exception.\u00a0 New South Wales Premier J.J. Cahill was bold enough to approve the project in 1958, but his death a year later, compounded by acrimony in the project itself, augured ill for the building.\u00a0 The Liberal government of Robert Askin, which came into office after 24 years of Labor rule, proved hostile, and the Minister for Public Works David Hughes had little time for Utzon\u2019s insistence on maintaining complete control over the project.<\/p>\n Costs began mounting. Estimated at 3.5 million pounds in 1959, the budget had blown out to 13.7 million pounds by 1962.\u00a0 The NSW government began meddling in the construction phase, stating its own views on seating in the main hall.\u00a0 Philistine did battle with Renaissance Man.\u00a0 In July 1964, the observation was made<\/a> in the publication Tharunka<\/em> that the press, with the support of \u201cpolitical intrigue\u201d, had achieved some success \u201cin destroying the public image of the Opera House.\u201d<\/p>\n Utzon would eventually throw in the towel with a heave of disgust, leaving the project, and country, after falling out with a plywood manufacturer who was retained to produce prototypes<\/a> of the beams intended to support the ceilings and glass exterior walls.\u00a0 The decision was also helped, in no small measure, by the tart response to Utzon from Hughes when they met at the latter\u2019s office on February 28, 1966.\u00a0 Seeking to be paid for outstanding fees regarding the stage machinery, Hughes cited a contrarian report from Arup.\u00a0 \u201cYou are always threatening to quit,\u201d Hughes said dismissively.\u00a0 But quit, Utzon did.<\/p>\n Rage filled protests followed.\u00a0 In March 1966, a 1,000 strong protest<\/a>, armed with a petition of 3,000 signatures backing Utzon\u2019s reinstatement, took place.\u00a0 A sculptor went on hunger strike.\u00a0 All of it was in vain.\u00a0 The gold laying goose had fled.\u00a0 Hughes, left without the guide for the design (or so he claimed), could only tell the public<\/a> that it was \u201cthe Government\u2019s intention to complete the Opera House, ensuring that the spirit of the original conception is fulfilled.\u201d<\/p>\n The mangling, readjustments and cuts began, a point made by a despairing critic Laurie Thomas in September 1968.\u00a0 Writing in The Australian, Thomas thought the small opera hall was passable, but the concert hall, \u201ca disaster.\u00a0 It has the air of an extraordinarily fussy Town Hall.\u00a0 The ceiling is covered in knobs that can only be described as inverted teats.\u201d\u00a0 Hughes, ever the apologist, put much of this down to Utzon\u2019s own defective approach, a state of affairs challenged with some severity<\/a> by the 1994 exhibition The Unseen Utzon<\/em>.\u00a0 Even after almost three decades, the now knighted Davis would dismiss<\/a> Utzon\u2019s defenders such as architect Harry Seidler, his wife Penelope, along with Elias Duke-Cohen as partaking in an illusion.\u00a0 \u201cI wanted [Utzon] to produce something. I would have loved him to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n For just a taster of the spray that came during the construction, there is no better source than Keith Dunstan\u2019s 1972 gem Knockers<\/em><\/a>.\u00a0 The compiled comments are a delightful, acid corrective to the worshipful, after the fact responses that would follow the opening of the Opera House.\u00a0 Sir John Barbirolli remarked bitchily that it was, \u201cA piece of Danish pastry.\u201d Sydney architect Walter Bunning savaged the design, claiming it would \u201cbe a second-rate building when compared with the Lincoln Center Opera House being built in New York\u201d. Tenor Giuseppe Di Stefano admitted to knowing little about Australia, but knew more than a thing or two about opera.\u00a0 \u201cI think they are crazy to think opera can succeed in Sydney.\u201d<\/p>\n When it comes to greatness in vision and pettiness in decision, the latter often wins out.\u00a0 The appreciation, and the appreciative, can only come later.\u00a0 Peter Hall duly stepped into Utzon\u2019s shoes.\u00a0 Costs soared further by some $102 million (or A$1 billion in today\u2019s terms).\u00a0 Only years later would the remarkable, though somewhat more wounded structure, assume the proportions of a fable.<\/p>\n
\r\nThis content originally appeared on Dissident Voice<\/a> and was authored by Binoy Kampmark.
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