Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford

A Chorus of Contempt at The Sydney Opera House

1957. Jørn Utzon receives a phone call: he's just won an international competition to design a brand new opera house for the Australian city of Sydney. Utzon is unknown in the field, so this is a triumph. The young architect couldn’t have imagined what a bitter victory it would turn out to be... The Guggenheim in Bilbao; the Burj Khalifa in Dubai; the Shard in London. These days, everyone seems to want an iconic building. But Sydney Opera House was the first, the greatest – and the most painful. It's now fifty years since the Opera House was opened. This is its origin story. For a full list of sources, please see the show notes at <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://timharford.com&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1694698512355000&amp;usg=AOvVaw3hZZ0aQ5rZGmMhvQu-tFCn" href="http://timharford.com/">timharford.com</a>. See <a href="https://omnystudio.com/listener">omnystudio.com/listener</a> for privacy information.

We tell our children unsettling fairy tales to teach them valuable lessons, but these Cautionary Tales are for the education of the grown ups – and they are all true. Tim Harford (Financial Times, BBC, author of “The Data Detective”) brings you stories of awful human error, tragic catastrophes, and hilarious fiascos. They'll delight you, scare you, but also make you wiser. New episodes every other Friday.