The sails of the newly completed Sydney Opera House are the cover image of the August 1973 issue of American journal Architecture Plus. The lead article is Boyd’s final article, ‘A Night at the Opera House’. Boyd wrote it shortly before his sudden death in October 1971 - it was intended to be delivered as a lecture at the Royal Institute of British Architects’ 1971 Annual Conference (manuscript pdf, published article pdf).

In the article, Boyd reinforces the symbolic role of the Sydney Opera House, which had earned landmark status from its conception, through its construction and afterward. At the time of writing, the Opera House was nearing completion. Boyd is enthusiastic for a successful outcome: “It is quite breathtaking at first sight, unique and so commanding as to seem axiomatic. Sydney enjoys its being there and is totally unconcerned about what happens inside.” Boyd notes that the seventeen-year process of realising the building was marred with issues of politics, difficulties in translating Danish architect Jorn Utzon’s daring initial concept, the building’s complex technical aspects, and the prolonged design and construction process. Significantly, Boyd devotes much of his discussion to the Opera House design being rooted in the 1950s shape architecture of Eero Saarinen, who by the accounts of the 1957 design competition was the key jury member: “Utzon's design was directly, precisely in line with this phase of Saarinen's work, except that it was rather better.”