As one the two headline events of this year’s Festival, Anne Watson will examine one of the most contentious events in Australia’s architectural history – Jørn Utzon’s replacement by Peter Hall as design architect of the Sydney Opera House in April 1966.

Long considered irredeemably flawed, the post-Utzon history of the building has been largely neglected by historians. Accessing Hall’s own archive for the first time, this lecture plots his first year on the job and reveal the 35-year old architect’s dilemma in resolving the dispute over the functions of the Opera House auditoria.

Anne Watson is an author, lecturer and former Curator of Architecture and Design at the Powerhouse Museum. Her publications include Beyond Architecture: Marion Mahony and Walter Burley Griffin in America, Australia and India and Building a Masterpiece: the Sydney Opera House.

Tix info at the SAF site.