The dramatic 1966 resignation of Jørn Utzon from the Sydney Opera House commission, and the international controversy that followed, caused Robin Boyd to reflect on the nature of the building’s design and the place it held in contemporary world architecture. Boyd had first included images of the Sydney Opera House in his 1958 article Engineering of Excitement and would make reference to the building in numerous articles and lectures afterward. Two aspects about the Opera House debacle interested Boyd. The first was Utzon’s brilliant conception and the potential contradiction found between its external shapes and the acoustic interior volumes within. Form did not appear to follow function, and this was a challenge to Boyd’s own aesthetic position. The other was the challenge to an architect’s intellectual and aesthetic principles. Utzon’s dismissal could be seen as a threat to an architect’s artistic integrity. One of Boyd’s very last articles, written as a lecture and published posthumously in 1973, was entitled ‘A night at the Opera House’.

Grounds, Romberg & Boyd registered for the Sydney Opera House Competition in 1956 but seem to have abandoned the idea quite early.