Story of building of Sydney Opera House to hit the big screen
Danish architect struggled against budget constraints, politics and local opposition to his design, and never visited the completed building
The story behind the Sydney Opera House and its Danish architect Jorn Utzon is to be made into a film, with the Swedish producer behind The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo on board.
The Danish/Swedish/Australian production will tell the story of how Utzon upset the conservative Australian architectural establishment by winning an international competition to design the building and his battles to push through his radical ideas.
“Utzon was a great Danish architect and the story of how he created the Sydney Opera is both fascinating and scary. This story has to be told,” executive producer Ole Sondberg says.
Sondberg is best known for producing The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, part of the Millennium trilogy based on Stieg Larsson’s novels. He was also behind the popular Wallander television series.
Utzon arrived in Sydney as a celebrity in 1957 but his ambitious design, with the building’s distinctive white sails drawn from his childhood in the Aalborg shipyards, was beset by domestic politics, petty jealousies and budget constraints.
