The Sydney Opera House will display the tapestry by the French artist, commissioned by the venue’s architect in 1958.

The Sydney Opera House has moved one step closer to the dream of its original architect, Jørn Utzon, unveiling a tapestry Utzon commissioned from French artist and architect Le Corbusier in 1958. Acquired at an auction in 2015 thanks to the support of donors led by Peter Weiss AO, the tapestry, Les Dés Sont Jetés (The Dice Are Cast) will hang in the Western Foyers, one of only two Opera House interiors that were finished to Utzon’s specifications.

Danish architect, Utzon, began work on the Sydney Opera House after winning a design competition – the ‘International competition for a national opera house at Bennelong Point, Sydney’ – in 1956. However, his relationship with the building would be infamously turbulent. When he was acrimoniously forced to withdraw as chief architect in 1966 amid funding disputes with the new Liberal State Government, elected the previous year, many of his original designs, most notably for the building’s interiors, were compromised to reduce building costs.

The Le Corbusier tapestry remained in Utzon’s dining room in Hellebæk, Denmark, and later in the workshop of his son,...