Still, few commentators dispute the value of the venue and its place as a national icon, one that is recognised worldwide. At that point, new architects were appointed and significant changes were made with regard to the interior design, causing more delays.Ĭritics also point out that there was no effective project manager at any stage and that the Sydney Opera House Executive Committee, set up by the government to oversee the development, was made up primarily of political figures with little technical experience. The start of construction came despite protests from Danish architect Jorn Utzon that his design, which had been selected as the winning entry in a competition in 1956, was not complete and represented little more than concept drawings, as well as the fact that there were no known methods by which to build the complex roof structure.Ĭompounding this were changing project requirements substantial delays resulted from Utzon having to alter the blueprint after the government decided it wanted four theatres instead of two as originally specified.įurther problems emerged in 1966 as Utzon was forced to resign after the Ministry of Works stopped payment to him following the election of a new Liberal government in 1965. Meanwhile, legal resource site said a study of the construction process shows that “the total disregard for proper plans to be put in place from the start of the project can have disastrous consequences and having no project manager is certainly not advisable.”įollowing the mooting of plans for a better venue for performing arts than the town hall where performances were being held in Sydney in the 1940s, construction of the Opera House was hurriedly started in 1959. In a 2005 article in Harvard Design Magazine, Danish economic geographer cited the building as being literally the worst example of mega- project planning, accusing project proponents of purposely lowballing cost estimates and concluding that in terms of project management, “ Sydney provides a lesson in what not to do.”
The naming follows decades of criticism about the way the project was managed, though few deny its iconic value. The Sydney Opera House, which was originally expected to cost just $7 million and open by Australia Day 1963, was eventually completed 10 years late for around $102 million – almost 14 times over budget. In a roundtable listing of what it refers to as ‘monumental budget busters’, architecture blog site Architizer has placed Australia’s most famous building second on the list, behind Montreal’s Olympic Stadium in Canada.
Sydney Opera House has been named as part of a ‘Hall of Shame’ of landmark building projects for which major cost blowouts have occurred.
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