Editing Sydney Opera House (section)

===Utzon and his resignation===
[[File:Sydney Opera House (30111403413).jpg|thumb|The building illuminated at night]]
Before the Sydney Opera House competition, Jørn Utzon had won seven of the 18 competitions he had entered but had never seen any of his designs built.<ref name=autogenerated1>page174</ref> Utzon's submitted concept for the Sydney Opera House was almost universally admired and considered groundbreaking. The Assessors Report of January 1957 stated:

{{blockquote|The drawings submitted for this scheme are simple to the point of being diagrammatic. Nevertheless, as we have returned again and again to the study of these drawings, we are convinced that they present a concept of an Opera House which is capable of becoming one of the great buildings of the world.}}

For the first stage, Utzon worked successfully with the rest of the design team and the client, but, as the project progressed, the Cahill government insisted on progressive revisions. They also did not fully appreciate the costs or work involved in design and construction. Tensions between the client and the design team grew further when an early start to construction was demanded despite an incomplete design. This resulted in a continuing series of delays and setbacks while various technical engineering issues were being refined. The building was unique, and the problems with the design issues and cost increases were exacerbated by commencement of work before the completion of the final plans.

After the 1965 election of the Liberal Party, with [[Robert Askin]] becoming [[Premier of New South Wales]], the relationship of client, architect, engineers and contractors became increasingly tense. Askin had been a "vocal critic of the project prior to gaining office."<ref name="smh.com.au">{{cite news |author=Farrelly, Elizabeth |author-link=Elizabeth Farrelly |title=High noon at Bennelong Point |url=http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/high-noon-at-bennelong-point/2008/11/30/1227979845045.html?page=fullpage |access-date=3 December 2014 |date=30 November 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150807212144/http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/high-noon-at-bennelong-point/2008/11/30/1227979845045.html?page=fullpage |archive-date=7 August 2015 |url-status=live }}</ref> His new Minister for Public Works, [[Davis Hughes]], was even less sympathetic. [[Elizabeth Farrelly]], an Australian architecture critic, wrote that:
{{blockquote|at an election night dinner party in Mosman, Hughes' daughter Sue Burgoyne boasted that her father would soon sack Utzon. Hughes had no interest in art, architecture or aesthetics. A fraud, as well as a philistine, he had been exposed before Parliament and dumped as Country Party leader for 19 years of falsely claiming a university degree. The Opera House gave Hughes a second chance. For him, as for Utzon, it was all about control; about the triumph of homegrown mediocrity over foreign genius.<ref name="smh.com.au"/>}}
[[File:Sydney Opera House mid-morning.jpg|left|thumb|The Opera House seen from the north]]
Differences ensued. One of the first was that Utzon believed the clients should receive information on all aspects of the design and construction through his practice, while the clients wanted a system (notably drawn in sketch form by Davis Hughes) where architect, contractors, and engineers each reported to the client directly and separately. This had great implications for [[procurement]] methods and cost control, with Utzon wishing to negotiate contracts with chosen suppliers (such as Ralph Symonds for the plywood interiors) and the New South Wales government insisting contracts be [[Call for bids|put out to tender]].<ref name="PMurray" />

Utzon was highly reluctant to respond to questions or criticism from the client's Sydney Opera House Executive Committee (SOHEC).<ref name=autogenerated2>page 191</ref> However, he was greatly supported throughout by a member of the committee and one of the original competition judges, [[Harry Ingham Ashworth]]. Utzon was unwilling to compromise on some aspects of his designs that the clients wanted to change.

Utzon's ability was never in doubt, despite questions raised by Davis Hughes, who attempted to portray Utzon as an impractical dreamer. Ove Arup actually stated that Utzon was "probably the best of any I have come across in my long experience of working with architects"<ref name=autogenerated7>page 209</ref> and: "The Opera House could become the world's foremost contemporary masterpiece if Utzon is given his head."
[[File:Sydney Opera House, botanic gardens 1.jpg|thumb|left|The Opera House, backed by the [[Sydney Harbour Bridge]], from the eastern [[Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney|Botanic Gardens]]]]

In 1965 Utzon was working closely with [[Ralph Symonds]], a manufacturer of [[plywood]] based in Sydney and highly regarded by many, despite an Arup engineer warning that Ralph Symonds's "knowledge of the design stresses of plywood was extremely sketchy" and that the technical advice was "elementary to say the least and completely useless for our purposes." Australian architecture critic Elizabeth Farrelly has referred to Ove Arup's project engineer Michael Lewis as having "other agendas".<ref name="smh.com.au"/> By February 1966, Utzon was owed more than $100,000 in fees.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/high-noon-at-bennelong-point/2008/11/30/1227979845045.html?page=fullpage |title=High noon at Bennelong Point |work=The Sydney Morning Herald |date=1 December 2008 |access-date=3 December 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150807212144/http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/high-noon-at-bennelong-point/2008/11/30/1227979845045.html?page=fullpage |archive-date=7 August 2015 |url-status=live }}</ref> Hughes then withheld funding so that Utzon could not even pay his own staff. The government minutes record that following several threats of resignation, Utzon finally stated to Davis Hughes: "If you don't do it, I resign." Hughes replied: "I accept your resignation. Thank you very much. Goodbye."<ref name=autogenerated6>page224</ref>
[[File:Sydney Opera House 2018-08-22 hires.jpg|thumb|The Opera House viewed from the south west]]
Utzon left the project on 28 February 1966. He said that Hughes's refusal to pay him any fees and the lack of collaboration caused his resignation and later described the situation as "Malice in Blunderland". In March 1966, Hughes offered him a subordinate role as "design architect" under a panel of executive architects, without any supervisory powers over the House's construction, but Utzon rejected this. Utzon left Australia, never to return.

Following the resignation, there was great controversy about who was in the right and who was in the wrong. ''[[The Sydney Morning Herald]]'' initially opined: "No architect in the world has enjoyed greater freedom than Mr Utzon. Few clients have been more patient or more generous than the people and the Government of NSW. One would not like history to record that this partnership was brought to an end by a fit of temper on the one side or by a fit of meanness on the other." On 17 March 1966, the ''Herald'' offered the view that:<ref name=autogenerated5>page 228</ref> "It was not his [Utzon's] fault that a succession of Governments and the Opera House Trust should so signally have failed to impose any control or order on the project ... his concept was so daring that he himself could solve its problems only step by step ... his insistence on perfection led him to alter his design as he went along."

[[File:Sydney Opera House (Front 2).jpg|thumb|The steps of the Opera House]]

The Sydney Opera House opened the way for the immensely complex geometries of some modern architecture. The design was one of the first examples of the use of [[computer-aided design]] to design complex shapes. The design techniques developed by Utzon and Arup for the Sydney Opera House have been further developed and are now used for architecture, such as works of [[Gehry]] and [[blobitecture]], as well as most reinforced concrete structures. The design is also one of the first in the world to use [[araldite]] to glue the precast structural elements together and proved the concept for future use.

It was also a first in mechanical engineering. Another Danish firm, [[Steensen Varming]], was responsible for designing the new air-conditioning plant, the largest in Australia at the time, supplying over {{convert|600000|cuft|m3}} of air per minute,<ref>Sunday Mail, 9 April 1972</ref> using the innovative idea of harnessing the harbour water to create a water-cooled [[heat pump]] system that is still in operation today.<ref>A. Building a masterpiece 2006</ref>