Divided Loyalties: Peter Hall, Philip Parsons and the Dilemma of Utzon's Return

Abstract

When Jørn Utzon resigned from the uncompleted Sydney Opera House project in February 1966, his successor Peter Hall was faced with innumerable and inevitably controversial design problems. But one of Hall's greatest dilemmas was not design-related. With Utzon signalling a wish to return to the job in early 1967, Hall found himself entangled in negotiations to pressure the government to reconcile with the original architect. Identified by the self-appointed conciliation strategist, Sydney academic Dr Philip Parsons, as the key intermediary by which negotiations succeeded or failed, Hall was torn between his professional regard for Utzon's claim to the building, doubts over Utzon's professed spirit of compromise and the contradictory advice of colleagues and government officials. Drawing on newly discovered documentation in Parsons' papers, this article explores the ambiguity of allegiances with which Hall was faced during 1967, Utzon's vacillating overtures and the well-intentioned dedication with which Parsons sought to affect a viable reconciliation. A little-known sequel to the much-published 1966 resignation story, the complex interweaving of Utzon's apparently changed attitude in 1967, Hall's divided loyalties and the government's continuing intransigence contribute new layers to the Opera House narrative.

Author's Note

This article is indebted to the generous access to archival material provided by Katharine Brisbane, Willy Hall and Penelope Seidler.

Notes

^1. Ken Woolley, Reviewing the Performance: The Design of the Sydney Opera House (Boorowa: Watermark Press, 2010); Peter Webber, Peter Hall, Architect (Boorowa: Watermark Press, 2012); Philip Drew, “Romanticism Revisited: Jørn Utzon's Sydney Opera House,” Architectural Theory Review 12, no. 2 (2007): 121–145.

^2. Drew, “Romanticism Revisited,” 143.

^3. Naomi Stead and Antony Moulis, “Sydney's Prometheus: Myth, Representation and Remediation at Joern Utzon's Sydney Opera House,” in Michael Chapman and Michael Ostwald, eds., Imagining… Proceedings of the 27th International SAHANZ Conference (Newcastle: Society of Architectural Historians of Australia and New Zealand, 2010), 407.

^4. Jørn Utzon to Peter Hall, 4 April 1967, Peter Hall Papers, private collection.

^5. Hall Todd & Littlemore, “Sydney Opera House: Review of Programme,” 12 December 1966.

^6. Mungo MacCallum, “Utzon: ‘Let me Finish the Job’,” The Australian, February 28, 1967, 1.

^7. Francis Evers and Dr Philip Parsons, “The Opera House Crisis,” The Australian, February 11, 1967; “The Dream Goes Sour,” The Australian, February 13, 1967; and “The Case for Utzon,” The Australian, February 14, 1967.

^8. Parsons (1926–1993) was senior lecturer in the Drama Department at the University of New South Wales from 1966 to 1987 and highly active in theatrical circles in Sydney for over two decades. In 1971, with his wife, the writer and critic Katharine Brisbane, Parsons established Currency Press to publish the work of emerging Australian playwrights.

^9. “Government does not want Utzon Back,” Sydney Morning Herald, March 1, 1967.

^10. Philip Parsons, “Proposals to Enable Mr Joern Utzon to Return to the Sydney Opera House,” (n.d. [late March 1967]), 1, Katharine Brisbane and Philip Parsons Papers, private collection.

^11. Petition, NSW Government Architect's Branch employees to Hall Todd & Littlemore, 2 March 1967, State Records NSW (SRNSW).

^12. “Utzon Underground,” Sydney Morning Herald, March 6, 1967. According to the article the posters were distributed on 23 February to coincide with a meeting called by Davis Hughes to discuss the future of the Major Hall. This and other Utzon supporters' protest activities during 1966 and 1967 are detailed in Anne Watson, “Bring Utzon Back: The Protest that Divided a Profession,” in Anne Watson, ed, Building a Masterpiece: The Sydney Opera House (Sydney: Powerhouse Publishing, 2006), 152–67.

^13. Owen Tooth, “Free Summary of Conversation, PBH & OT,” 8 April 1967, Brisbane/Parsons Papers.

^14. According to Tooth's notes, Hall also mentioned at this stage a “confidential document” refuting Evers' article “point by point”.

^16. Peter Hall, “Notes on Document Signed by Jorn Utzon, 4 April 1967,” 10 April 1967, Hall Papers.

^18. Parsons, “Proposals,” 3.

^19. Parsons, “Proposals,” 6.

^15. Peter Hall, Weekly Diary, 15 April 1967, Hall Papers.

^17. Parsons, “Proposals,” 1.

^20. Jørn Utzon to Bill Wheatland, (n.d. [early April 1967]), Brisbane/Parsons Papers. The letter enclosed three copies of the Parsons statement signed by Utzon.

^21. Utzon to Hall, Amended copy of Parsons statement, 4 April 1967, Brisbane/Parsons Papers.

^22. Philip Parsons to Jørn Utzon, 23 April 1967, p. 1, Brisbane/Parsons Papers. Michael Lewis was Arup's head of the Opera House project in Sydney. The antagonism between Utzon and Lewis contributed substantially to tensions on the project in the mid-1960s. Hall had spoken to Lewis as recorded in his diary on 15 April 1967.

^23. Philip Parsons, draft letters, Jørn Utzon to Peter Hall and to President, RAIA, [23 April 1967], Brisbane/Parsons Papers.

^28. Hall, Diary, 1 May 1967.

^24. Hall, insertion in Weekly Diary, “Discussions with Parsons, 28 April 1967,” 1 May 1967, Hall Papers.

^25. Hall, Diary, 1 May 1967.

^26. Hall, Diary, 1 May 1967.

^27. J. C. Humphrey to Davis Hughes, 2 May 1967, SRNSW.

^30. Harry Seidler / Sigfried Giedion, “An Open Letter to the Premier and Minister for Public Works of New South Wales, Australia,” (n.d. [c.12 April 1967: Giedion refers to the open letter when writing to Seidler on 12 April 1967, Harry Seidler Archive]). The letter, a copy of which is in the Brisbane/Parsons Papers, draws from Giedion's writing on Utzon in the 1967 edition of Space, Time and Architecture, 687–88.

^29. Harry Seidler to Sigfried Giedion, 7 April 1967, Harry Seidler Archive, private collection.

^31. Sigfried Giedion, Space, Time and Architecture: The Growth of a New Tradition, 5th ed. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1967), 677.

^32. Philip Goad, “An Appeal for Modernism: Sigfried Giedion and the Sydney Opera House,” Fabrications 8 (July 1997): 130.

^33. Sigfried Giedion, “Jørn Utzon and the Third Generation,” Zodiac 14 (1965): 36–47.

^34. Giedion, Space, Time and Architecture, 686.

^35. Sigfried Giedion, “Debasement of a Masterpiece,” RIBAJ (May 1967): 170.

^36. Philip Parsons to Jørn Utzon, 14 July 1967, Brisbane/Parsons Papers.

^37. Philip Parsons, notes “Proposed Meeting with Peter Hall,” (n.d. [c.14 July 1967]), Brisbane/Parsons Papers.

^38. Parsons, “Proposed Meeting,” 1.

^39. Parsons, “Proposed Meeting,” 2.

^41. Parsons, “Proposed Meeting,” 5.

^42. Parsons, “Proposed Meeting,” 5.

^40. Parsons, “Proposed Meeting,” 4.

^43. Parsons, “Proposed Meeting,” 6.

^44. Parsons, “Proposed Meeting,” 6.

^48. Hall, Weekly Diary, 13 August 1967.

^45. Hall, Weekly Diary, 20 July 1967.

^46. Hall, Weekly Diary, 23 July 1967.

^47. Hall, Weekly Diary, 23 July 1967.

^49. Philip Parsons to Jørn Utzon, 17 August 1967, Brisbane/Parsons Papers.

^50. Hall had other reasons to delay progress at this stage: motivated by his talks in Arup's London office, he was arguing for a radical redesign of the glass walls. A moratorium on design, as advocated by Ove Arup, would have given him breathing space to make a case for the revised glass wall scheme.

^51. Parsons to Utzon, 17 August 1967.

^52. Michael Baume, The Sydney Opera House Affair (Sydney: Thomas Nelson, 1967).

^53. “Peter Hall… explains, reasonably and modestly, what he and his team are doing”. John Carter, review of The Sydney Opera House Affair, RIBAJ (November 1967): 495. Carter's main criticism of the book was that it failed to “ponder the final puzzle of Utzon's self-destruction”.

^54. Peter Hall, epilogue, “Function is not a ‘Dirty’ Word,” in Baume, The Sydney Opera House Affair, 109–17.

^55. Defending the objectivity of his book, Baume described a review by John Power as a “mauling”. Baume, “The Utzonites and Me,” Quadrant (September-October 1967): 5.

^56. In his Quadrant defence Baume stated that he had unsuccessfully approached Utzon to contribute an epilogue and that after “a letter of warning” from Utzon's solicitor, had removed material that was “highly critical of Utzon”: “I still think it is a useful book. It would have been more so had the risk of a libel action not forced us to edit out some of the facts.”

^57. Hall, Weekly Diary, 6 August 1967, Hall Papers.

^58. While Baume had written to the minister seeking publication permission just before Christmas 1966, it seems that consent had not been given by the time the book went to print in February 1967. See Baume / Hughes correspondence, 20 December 1966–13 February 1967, SRNSW.

^59. Baume, The Sydney Opera House Affair, xii, xi.

^60. Carter, review of The Sydney Opera House Affair, 495.

^61. Jørn Utzon to Philip Parsons, 23 August 1967, Brisbane/Parsons Papers. Utzon's comments suggest that Baume's book was his first confrontation with the new brief and that he was unfamiliar with the “Review of Programme” released in late 1966.

^62. Philip Parsons to Jørn Utzon, 1 September 1967, Brisbane/Parsons Papers. Parsons was relating to Utzon the main points of a discussion with Hall and Bill Wheatland the preceding day.

^64. Hall, “Notes from Telephone Conversation”, Hall Papers.

^67. Hall, “P. H. Meeting with Hughes”.

^63. Peter Hall, “Notes from Telephone Conversation with Utzon,” 14 September 1967, Brisbane/Parsons Papers.

^65. Hall, Weekly Diary insertion, “P. H. Meeting with Hughes,” 20 September 1967, Hall Papers.

^66. Hall, “P. H. Meeting with Hughes”.

^73. “Transcript of a Tape Recorded Message from Mr Jorn Utzon,” 19 February 1968, Hall Papers.

^74. Helen Frizell, “Is Joern Utzon's Return Truly Impossible?” Sydney Morning Herald, February 19, 1968, 6. The article quoted at length Parsons' description of the preceding year's negotiations.

^76. Draft telegram, Davis Hughes to Jørn Utzon, 27 February 1968, SRNSW.

^77. Peter Hall to Yuzo Mikami, 27 February 1968, Hall Papers.

^68. “I am relying very much on the possibility of Mr Ryan coming back and this will give me a perfect basis for finishing the Opera House in a correct way because Mr Ryan and I are in complete understanding”. Jørn Utzon to Philip Parsons, 23 August 1967, Brisbane/Parsons Papers.

^69. Dated 26 October 1967, two reports, with the offending stickers, were filed by Public Works officers, SRNSW.

^70. The text of the advertisement was written by Elias Duek-Cohen, Owen Tooth and Elizabeth Price.

^71. Programme and transcript of speeches, “Public Meeting in the Sydney Town Hall,” 19 February 1968, SRNSW.

^72. Utzon had earlier provided data for a dual-purpose hall that included revised seating widths (21 inches), row spacings (34 inches) and seating numbers (concerts – 2800; opera – 1836/2064). “Figures from Jorn Utzon received February 1968,” Brisbane/Parsons Papers. If they have survived, Utzon's drawings for these new solutions have, to the writer's knowledge, never been made public.

^75. Telegram, Jørn Utzon to Robert Askin, 21 February 1968, SRNSW.

^78. Philip Parsons, “Radical vs Conservative Architecture: The Ruin of Utzon's Audacious Vision,” Meanjin Quarterly 26, no 3 (September 1967): 344.