Bold Visions Aren’t Born in Committees

Bold visions are rarely the stuff of committees. Committees are creatures of consensus, they are good at avoiding mistakes. The larger they get, the more conservative they become.

Bold visions spring from the inspirations of an individual mind. Dr Martin Luther King did not say: “We have a dream”. That would be a group hallucination. He declared instead: “I have a dream” – and millions of people around the world joined him.

It falls to the leader to conceive the vision and for the collective to either adopt or abandon.

The Sydney Opera House is a case in point. It is the most recognisable building of the 20th Century. An icon to rival the Colosseum of Rome. And to whom do we owe this felicity of genius?

The design competition in 1958 attracted 223 entries from 28 countries. Jørn Utzon‘s masterpiece did not even make the short-list. It fell to star architect, Eero Saarinen, who arrived four days late to the judging panel, to pluck Utzon’s design from the reject pile.

Sydney dodged a bullet. If it was left to the committee, Sydney Harbour would have ended up with an utterly underwhelming opera house. See here what the short-listed entries looked like. https://lnkd.in/gUdCJtmd

It took a great team to build the Sydney Opera House – but it took an inspired individual to conceive it and an inspired individual to select it.