Cautionary Tales A Chorus of Contempt at The Sydney Opera House

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1957. Jørn Utzon receives a phone call: he’s just won an international competition to design a brand new opera house for the Australian city of Sydney. Utzon is unknown in the field, so this is a triumph. The young architect couldn’t have imagined what a bitter victory it would turn out to be…

The Guggenheim in Bilbao; the Burj Khalifa in Dubai; the Shard in London. These days, everyone seems to want an iconic building. But Sydney Opera House was the first, the greatest – and the most painful. It’s now fifty years since the Opera House was opened. This is its origin story.

For a full list of sources, please see the show notes at timharford.com.

The Host

Tim Harford

Tim Harford’s long-running column in the Financial Times, “The Undercover Economist,” reveals the economic ideas behind everyday experiences. His first book, The Undercover Economist, was published in 30 languages and sold…