Joern Utzon’s lost vision for Sydney Opera House finally unveiled
A piece of architectural history has finally come home to Sydney, as a tapestry commissioned by Joern Utzon takes its place in the Opera House
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In the 1950s a young architect commissioned an artwork for the house he was designing. Today it was finally installed.
But the delay only underlines that this was no ordinary architect and his was no ordinary commission.
Deep in the throes of realising his plans for the Sydney Opera House, Joern Utzon asked one of the greatest architects, designers and artists of the 20th century to make him a tapestry to complement his vision
Swiss-French legend Charles-Edouard Jeanneret-Gris, better known as Le Corbusier, obliged, but it was not until yesterday that Sydney finally got to enjoy the fruits of his labour.
That tapestry, Les Des Sont Jetes (The Dice Are Cast), which hung for many years in the Utzon family home, was acquired last year by the Opera House for $413,000 and yesterday was unveiled in the Western Foyer, thanks to some generous sponsors including fashion magnate Peter Weiss.
After winning a competition in 1957 to design Sydney’s new arts venue, Utzon had yet to overcome some of the design problems with the sails that would crown his creation, but he was already thinking about its interiors.
In a bold move the relatively unknown Danish architect wrote a letter to the great Swiss-born master Le Corbusier in 1958 proposing a collaboration on the Opera House interiors. Utzon wanted to deck his modernist masterpiece with modern art and although Le Corbusier was in a later stage of his career he was still one of the most influential interior designers and architects of the time.
When Utzon contacted him, Le Corbusier had already built some of his most famous structures, including the Villa Savoye (1931), a home that made revolutionary use of reinforced concrete and open-plan spaces, the UN Headquarters in New York (1952) and the modernist church Notre Dame du Haut in Ronchamp, France (1954).
His career was not without controversy and Utzon was soon to spark controversy with his Opera House, but they shared a vision about the union of art and architecture.
The pair met in Paris in 1959 and discussed decorating Utzon’s masterpiece. Le Corbusier made notes and sketched Utzon’s design in a notebook, something he did not usually do regarding the works of other architects. Clearly he was impressed.
Utzon commissioned several works from Le Corbusier including Les Des Sont Jetes, the title suggesting Utzon’s gamble. Completed in 1960, copies were sold to private buyers and one went to Utzon’s home in Denmark. It was to serve as inspiration until the Opera House was finished when it would find its proper place in the building’s interior.
But as history records Utzon was plagued by problems with the Opera House and quit the project, leaving Corbusier’s artworks a forgotten element of his vision.
In 2006 Antony Moulis from the School of Architecture at the University of Queensland, was researching at the Le Corbusier archive in Paris where he found Utzon’s letters to Le Corbusier.
“As I followed through on the letters I found the commissioned works were produced and sent to Utzon,” he says. The commission included some enamels along with the tapestry.
Moulis delivered a paper on the subject in 2010 and sent an account of his research to Utzon’s son Jan, but the next he heard of the lost Le Corbusier tapestry, which had been in Utzon’s home, was when the Opera House, having been alerted to its existence, bought it at an auction last year.
It has now taken its place on the wall of the Western Foyer.
Moulis says: “It represents Utzon’s earliest imaginings of the interior of the building. Something that never really came to pass because of his leaving Sydney.”
LOST VISION
SEVERAL other elements that Utzon wanted for the interior of the Opera House never made it into the final structure.
The architect who took over from Utzon, Peter Hall, believed Utzon’s seating plan for the auditorium would have been “too small”. He said that for safety reasons it would also have been “plain illegal.”
Utzon’s plans for the halls were also rejected. The main hall, which he wanted to be multipurpose, for concerts and opera, was reserved exclusively for concerts and the smaller hall, meant for theatre was turned into an opera hall. His designs were overhauled resulting in some of the acoustic problems that have plagued the building.
Originally published as Joern Utzon’s lost vision for Sydney Opera House finally unveiled
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