Everything that is planned for the Opera House is based on the desire to take people from their daily routine into a world of fantasy, a world which they can share with the musicians and actors.

Jørn Utzon, July 1964

Two flicks of a saw-toothed roofline on the Olympic logo, and the world knew which city staged the games. Sydney Opera House is the only 20th-century building that has become a city's icon - Big Ben, Miss Liberty and the Eiffel Tower date from the 19th - and may well rank with Hagia Sophia and the Taj Mahal as our era's legacy to the ages. How did an easy-going metropolis, not noted even in Australia for elegance or charm, manage to snare this rare beauty? Come to think of it, where are its successors? Why are most modern cities ugly clumps of commercial towers, our attempts at memorialising the Millennium such dismal flops?

LRB 5 October 2000 | PDF Download