BREAD (OF HEAVEN) AND CIRCUSES

ZAHA HADID and the CARDIFF BAY OPERA HOUSE

Introduction

Following the untimely death of the architect Zaha Hadid on 31 March 2016 many reports made reference to the ill-fated Cardiff Bay Opera House. Had that proposal progressed it might have been one of her first major public commissions in the UK. The promoters of the project sought financial support from the Millennium Commission in 1995 and a spurious contest, largely initiated by the media, arose between it and the Wales Millennium Stadium for such funding. References to the affair almost invariably suggest that a choice was presented to the wider public between those projects, one portrayed as elitist and the other determinedly populist. The incorrect impression that the Hadid Opera House was rejected in favour of the Stadium is perpetuated, not least by statements such as that on the latter’s website which asserts that;

“After competition from the proposed Cardiff Bay Opera House” the Millennium Commission agreed to support the redevelopment of the Cardiff Arms Park in March 1996” [1].

Here it is argued that the public debate was influential but not decisive in the failure to proceed with the Zaha Hadid design. Other factors contributed to that failure, some of which preceded that wider public debate.

A first- hand account the Cardiff Bay Opera House project (the Opera House) was offered by Lord Crickhowell (1997, 1999) who, as Nicholas Edwards, Secretary of State for Wales, was one of its instigators and later chaired the Cardiff Bay Opera House Trust (The Trust). Crickhowell’s account is accurate as to the facts but subjective and selective in their interpretation and presentation. A reviewer suggested that, by simply reading between the lines of Crickhowell’s 1997 book, the '…seeds of the Opera's downfall were laid' during the chairmanship of the Trust by his predecessor, Mathew Pritchard (Hannay 1997 p28). In this paper it is suggested that earlier decisions which led to the establishment of that Trust contributed to its failure. 

The background to the Cardiff Bay Opera House project to 1995

The Welsh National Opera (WNO) was established as a company in 1948 and, whilst based in and around Cardiff, utilised venues for performances which lacked the requisite backstage and support facilities. The need for a home for the WNO was identified in a 1984 report for the Arts Council of Great Britain. In 1985 Nicholas Edwards, as Secretary of State for Wales, and Matthew Prichard, Chairman of the Welsh Arts Council, commissioned separate reports on Housing the Visual Arts in Wales and on Housing the Performing Arts. At that time Wales offered a variety of venues but none that could accommodate major touring opera or musical theatre productions.

A report for the Welsh Arts Council on the Centre for Performing Arts published in September 1986 concluded that it should be a popular entertainment centre suitable for musicals, pantomime and other events with a mass appeal and that 16 weeks should be the period allotted to performances by WNO. Further feasibility and planning studies were commissioned by the Welsh Arts Council, supported by the Welsh Office, Cardiff City Council and South Glamorgan County Council, and undertaken during 1987.

At its inception the project was therefore intended to be a ‘popular entertainment centre for the performing arts’ and had the support of the Secretary of State for Wales and the local government authorities.

In 1988 the new Secretary of State for Wales, Peter Walker, announced that a site would be set aside in the Cardiff Bay Development Corporation (CBDC) area.  Some early design proposals for the Cardiff Bay redevelopment had included, albeit vaguely, a centre for the performing arts or opera house in a prominent waterfront location on land owned by Associated British Ports (ABP). Walker also made the suggestion that the building be called the Cardiff Bay Opera House (Crickhowell 1997 p7 & p144, Best 2004 p208).

Although that title was not formally adopted until 1991 the direction set by Walker that this would be an ‘opera house’ on ABP land within the Cardiff Bay area proved to be a critical factor.

CBDC set up a Steering Group in Dec 1990 involving representatives of WNO, the Welsh Arts Council, Cardiff City Council and South Glamorgan County Council. The site owners were represented by Nicholas Edwards, the former Secretary of State for Wales, by then Lord Crickhowell and a non-executive director of ABP. The steering group commissioned feasibility studies from various consultants which were submitted to the Welsh Office in Oct 1991. That was followed in Dec 1991 by a request for a pledge of Welsh Office funding for £5m for preparatory work and a further £20m on a contingency basis for the construction of the building, to be called on only in the event of successful fund-raising effort from other matching sources (Burrows 2004).

By 1992, when David Hunt had become Secretary of State for Wales, the project appears to have been even more expressly stated as the development of an opera house for WNO as part of the development of Cardiff Bay.  During that year the prospect emerged of National Lottery Funding for large capital projects of a cultural and civic nature. In November 1992 the recommendation was made that a separate trust be established to carry out the project. Paul Koralek, architectural adviser to the Steering Group, suggested selecting an architect for the project by means of a competition.

The Cardiff Bay Opera House Trust (The Trust) was established in November 1992 as a company limited by guarantee. The competition to select an architect was initiated and Welsh Office approval was secured for CBDC to fund the Trust’s work on a short-term rolling basis. This was an important factor in that CBDC was funding the Trust which was then effectively a subsidiary body as regards command of financial resources. Facilitating the building of an opera house was not in the core mission statement of the urban development corporation but was considered complementary to its overall objectives.

By 1992 when the Trust was established what had been originally conceived as a ‘popular entertainment centre for the performing arts’ was referred to specifically as an ‘opera house’. Furthermore this was to be;

·          within the Cardiff Bay area, the Development Corporation having been established by Edwards/ Crickhowell and;

·         built on land owned by ABP, a privatised company that Edwards/ Crickhowell had joined as a Non-Executive Director.

From the outset The Trustees had limited autonomy, being reliant upon the resources granted by CBDC and the other direct stakeholders, who included the Welsh Office and ABP. Any aspirations for architectural patronage on its part were potentially governed and influenced by the wider priorities of those stakeholders.

The Brief and design selection

In 1993 a further brief was prepared for a building with a main auditorium suitable for opera with 1,750 to 1,900 seats and an estimated budget of £43.25m.  That brief also included provision of an integral car park for 600 cars. This proved to be problematic for a number of reasons; not least the disproportionate impact on estimated cost. Essentially, an integral car park required the same standard of external design and materials as the opera house. The positioning of the car park also became a contentious issue with ABP. In the course of events it also conferred upon opponents of the project the opportunity to suggest that the integral car park had been a requirement of Trustees who expected a reserved parking space.

The appointment of an Assessment Panel to select an architect was also to have ‘profound consequences’ (Crickhowell 1997 p18). The Chairman of the Trust, Mathew Pritchard, had announced that he intended to exercise his prerogative and, advised by Paul Koralek, chose the Assessors for the competition ‘…in order to avoid argument among the Trustees’ (Crickhowell 1997 p18).

The panel appointed were;

-          Lord Peter Palumbo, then Chairman of the Arts Council

-          Professor Richard Silverman, Head of the Welsh School of Architecture and Chair of CBDC’s Design and Architecture Review Panel

-          Michael Wilford, Architect

-          Professor Francesco Dal Co, chair of architectural history, University of Venice

-          Paul Koralek, architectural adviser to the Trust

-          Lord (Jack) Brooks Deputy Chair of CBDC

-          Lord David Davies, Chair of WNO and;

-          Mathew Pritchard, Chair of the Trust

Freddie Watson of Grosvenor Waterside, the property development subsidiary of ABP, was a non-voting observer representing the owner of the proposed site of the Opera House.

The Trust delegated to the Panel the task of selecting the best design and their brief encompassed the operational requirements for the building including acoustics, layout and some initial assessment of feasibility. 

Discernment, one of the characteristics of architectural patronage, was thereby novated from the Trust to the panel appointed by its chairman.

Crickhowell states that chairmanship of both the Trust and the Assessment Panel placed on Mathew Pritchard ‘…an unfair burden of responsibility… particularly in the light of later controversy” (Crickhowell 1997 p18). It can be argued that a key responsibility of the Chairman was to ensure that;

·         There was no confusion as to the role of the panel appointed by the Trust and

·         that no conflict arose between the Trust and the Panel arising from the recommendation of the latter. 

Another interpretation is that, in taking the decision to personally appoint the panel, Pritchard selected members that were ‘unrepresentative’. This suggests that a Panel dominated by architectural academics and wealthy private patrons in their own right might inevitably select a design which would be too sophisticated to be understood and accepted by those less well qualified.

Crickhowell makes the comment that one of the shortcomings of the competition system was that the choice was made by the selection panel after “….an inevitably short technical and cost assessment…in which the client is hardly involved” (Crickhowell 1997 p23). The ensuing problems appear to be less attributable to the competence of the selection panel than the failure of the Trust to clearly recognise and establish who the ‘client’ was in this instance.

The Trust as the promoter – or patron- appear to have regarded itself and the WNO, as primary user- and ‘clients’- rather than the wider public who would be using (and paying) for the building.

In June 1993 the architectural competition for the building design was launched and the assessment of submissions took place through the rest of that year. Four finalists were chosen together with four pre-selected firms of architects who had been invited to submit proposals. Crickhowell expressed particular disappointment at the latter and implied that the overall quality of submissions might have been higher if there had been better engagement and more dialogue with competitors (Crickhowell 1997 pps 21-22).

In September 1994 a colloquium was held where the short-listed designs were displayed and public comment invited. At that event a representative of the Western Mail, a regional newspaper, requested, and was denied, photographs of the exhibits leading it to complain that the colloquium was an inadequate form of public consultation. The Trust were warned by their then manager, Adrian Ellis, and Freddie Watson of Grosvenor Waterside that it was a potentially serious mistake to alienate the local media at that stage.

Crickhowell comments that the final decision to select Zaha Hadid as their preferred architect was taken by the Assessment Panel “..in secret conclave” suggesting that if they had discussed their recommendation with those Trustees who were not Assessors, it might have been possible to come to a choice about which there was a broad measure of agreement (Crickhowell 1997 p23). Some Assessors were, however, clear in their decision to select the design proposal submitted by Hadid and still maintain that this was;

 “…. head and shoulders above anything else, anybody else. I think if we had to pick a second or third we would have been hard pressed to do it. She was that much ahead” (Palumbo 2015 p2).

That view was endorsed by the chair of CBDC’s Design Advisory Panel, Professor Richard Silverman who represented the Corporation on the Assessment Panel. It is doubtful, therefore, that their recommendation would have altered. That the assessors were not themselves unanimous in their decision was evidenced by Lord Brooks who stated that they ‘..had been unduly influenced by the architect members, who had appeared to favour a particular school of architecture’ (Crickhowell 1997 p30).

The key point here is that better dialogue within the Trust and with its Assessment Panel might have ensured agreement that members publicly support that decision rather than voice their dissent. This also relates to the earlier issues concerning its leadership and management.

Dispute also developed within the Trust’s sponsor body and a ‘senior Board member of CBDC’ circulated a lengthy paper attacking the decision to select Hadid (Crickhowell p28). Doubts were expressed as to the likely cost of the preferred design and Crickhowell makes reference to the Sydney Opera House  and the parallel between its architect and Hadid in terms of experience in managing large scale projects (Crickhowell 1997,pps25-27). The suggestion that the Trust were effectively re-considering the recommendation of their assessment panel triggered adverse comment in the architectural press, both in support of Hadid and in opposition to her design. CBDC declared their reservations on the winning design and requested that the expenditure earmarked for advancing and testing it be redirected to assessing the relative feasibility of the four final designs.

It is in reference to this action of CBDC that Crickhowell refers to failure in ‘..establishing the proper patron-client structure’(Crickhowell 1997 p27).

An exhibition was mounted at the National Museum of Wales in October 1994 whereby public comment was invited. This favoured the Foster design and generated some wider criticism of the Hadid proposal. Locally the situation was further exacerbated by the Cardiff Bay Business Forum who invited the other shortlisted architects to make presentations (Crickhowell 1997 pps35-36). The Forum was an organisation representing the interests of mostly small businesses in the Bay area, not the wider community. Nevertheless their intervention effectively extended a form of public consultation exercise and moved it further away from the management and control of the Trust or CBDC.

It can then be noted that the selection of Zaha Hadid was contentious but much of the ensuing controversy might have been avoided by better management of processes and relationships.

Crickhowell became Chairman of the Trust’s Building Committee in October 1994 and that month the Millennium Commission agreed to consider the Cardiff Bay Opera House project.

In November 1994 Rhodri Morgan MP questioned the then Secretary of State for Wales, John Redwood, asking if he had consulted with the chairman of the Cardiff Bay Development Corporation and the Millennium Fund Commission regarding the choice of architect for the proposed Opera House. Redwood, responded that the choice of architect was not a matter for him but he had spoken to the chairman of the Cardiff Bay Development Corporation urging him to “….allow the public to have a full opportunity to see the different designs and give their views, and for these to be taken in account by the trustees in coming to their decision on which design to build” (HANSARD. HC Deb 28 November 1994 vol 250 c533W 533W)

Redwood had been critical of the chosen design at the Welsh Conservative Conference the previous month and had effectively suggested a public referendum to decide the issue.

Rather than publicly confirming the same level of support as his predecessors as Secretary of State Redwood therefore appears to have distanced himself from the project and its promotion. 

In early December 1994 Pritchard resigned as Chair of the Trust and was succeeded by Crickhowell who admitted to “… one serious error in my handling of the whole business” (Crickhowell 1997 pps153-154). That was the recognition, in hindsight, that the relationship arrangement with CBDC had been problematic from the outset. Interestingly the admission includes his supposition that, having created the organization and appointed its Chairman “..any potential difficulties could be overcome by the use of well-established relationships.”

In that respect his patronage, meaning the appointment of his nominees to public office, was not beneficial. 

In accepting the chairmanship Crickhowell became a foreground figure who accentuated the ambiguity of the relationship between The Trust, CBDC as principal sponsor and ABP as landowner. As a non-executive director of ABP, Crickhowell recognised a potential conflict of interest and initially had no formal position with the Trust. He became directly involved in the Trust only after the terms of land acquisition for the Opera House had been agreed with ABP. There were, nevertheless a range of issues that arose from that commercial relationship, not least questions relating to probity.

Dispute had already arisen with the ABP subsidiary, Grosvenor Waterside, through Freddie Watson, who had been the senior civil servant at the Welsh Office and credited by Crickhowell as a key figure in the establishment of CBDC (Crickhowell 1999 p91). Watson had joined Grosvenor Waterside as their local director and his duty then lay with their commercial interests. As one of the principal critics of the Hadid proposals his view conflicted with that of Crickhowell, now a Non-Executive Director of Grosvenor Waterside’s parent company, ABP. Watson was ‘invited to take early retirement’ and replaced with another Crickhowell nominee.

Crickhowell’s commercial relationship with ABP as a Non-Executive director had been called to question by opponents of the Cardiff Bay Barrage and presented to critics of the Opera House fresh opportunity to insinuate such conflicts. Prominent among these was Rhodri Morgan MP. Morgan’s opinions on the opera house also led to further disagreement between him and Alun Michael MP, who was Deputy Chairman of the Trust. Lord Brooks, Deputy Chair of CBDC subsequently fell out with Alun Michael over the Opera House to the extent that the latter was not allowed to campaign in his own constituency for the new Shadow Authority that preceded the 1996 local government reorganisation. The priority of the Leader of the County Council, Russell Goodway, was to win that forthcoming election and, if the proposed Opera House were the source of further internal division within the local Labour Party, he was politically inclined to oppose it (Goodway 2014 p6). 

Goodway’s position, which was to prove influential, was thereby prejudiced against the Opera House as being divisive within his political party whereas the ‘rival’ Stadium project emerged as one with more ready appeal to the electorate.

Zaha Hadid was confirmed as the preferred architect for the building in Jan/ Feb 1995. In Feb 1995 a bid was submitted to the Millennium Commission for Lottery Funding for £50m. As that was being submitted a (revised) bid to the Commission was being prepared seeking funding for the redevelopment of the National Stadium at Cardiff Arms Park.

Some observations on the evolution of the Opera House project to 1995 are summarised as follows;

·         Between 1984 and 1992 there was a convergence of the objectives of a) providing a major lyric theatre or centre for the performing arts and b) securing a suitable home for the Welsh National Opera, the latter appearing to be the primary intent of the Trustees.

·         Whilst a long standing aspiration of opera supporters in South Wales the promoters of the project did not clearly establish the desire, need or support of the wider public.

·         The presentation of the project as an Opera House in Cardiff Bay alienated those opposed to a disproportionate investment in the city. Resourcing the Trust through the Cardiff Bay Development Corporation compounded that perception.

·         From the outset the Trust lacked the autonomy enjoyed by patrons of architecture historically, but underestimated the influence that its sponsors and stakeholders might exert upon its decisions.

·         The appointment of a highly qualified Assessment Panel further removed the selection of an architect from trustees and their sponsors. Subsequent division and disagreement on design matters within the Trust and, perhaps more importantly, between it and the sponsoring bodies, undermined wider confidence in the project.

·         The initiation of the project by Nicholas Edwards and his leading role (as Lord Crickhowell) in the Trust further polarised opposition from some quarters, not least due to his relationship with the landowner, ABP.

·         Within the city and county councils the proposal did not enjoy cohesive political support

The proposals for the Cardiff Bay Opera House designed by Zaha Hadid were therefore the subject of controversy and, by 1995, could be said to have been compromised or weakened.

The Background to the Cardiff Arms Park/ Millennium Stadium project to 1995

Rugby football and other sports were played from around 1850 on the area of land in Cardiff that became known as Cardiff Arms Park. A union of Welsh rugby clubs had existed from 1875, a more formal body emerging around 1881 and the title Welsh Rugby Union (WRU) adopted in 1934. (Smith and Williams 1980). International rugby games were played at Cardiff and elsewhere in Wales until June 1953 when the WRU decided "That until such time as the facilities at Swansea were improved, all international matches be played at Cardiff" (Harris 1984)

The status of Cardiff Arms Park as the ‘national’ rugby stadium was consolidated through further development ahead of the 1958 British Empire and Commonwealth Games which brought its overall capacity to 60,000. The success of the national rugby team from the late 1960’s and the rebuilding of the Arms Park as a National Stadium in the 1970s gave the city a focus for Wales and Welsh pride. The observation was made by Martin Johnes that the decision to hold all international matches in Cardiff may have been taken as the facilities and profits were better there. However, it also gave Cardiff some relevance in the wider Welsh community as “…in the absence of the traditional apparatus of a nation state, sport played an integral role in developing and sustaining a popular sense of Welsh national identity.” ( (Johnes 2012). A similar point was made by Rhodri Morgan in that much of Wales’ self-image as a nation rested on it being a separate country for sporting purposes. (Morgan 1994 p17). The (then) National Stadium could be described as the principal institution of nationhood and was very much central to Cardiff’s function as a capital.

The centrality of the National Stadium to Welsh identity and its symbolic and cultural importance to the wider community would therefore have been considered a given by many in 1995.

In 1994 a committee was set up to look at redeveloping the Wales National Stadium. The catalyst for this was the intention to bid for the 1999 Rugby World Cup (RWC99). The National Stadium, designed in 1962, had a capacity of only 53,000 which included 11,000 standing in the East Terrace. New safety regulations would mean that would be further reduced by 'all-seated' arrangements and the stadium offered no spectator facilities other than toilets.  Various development options were considered for the existing Stadium but an alternative presented was to construct a completely new facility elsewhere. One location offered and considered was the Island Farm Site south of Bridgend, 20 miles west of Cardiff.

The primary concern of the Local Authority was the potential economic impacts on the city were the Stadium to be relocated. Their initial motivation for engagement was then the threat that the National Stadium be relocated elsewhere.

In the view of the Leader of (the then) South Glamorgan County Council the economic case justified allocation of Council resources to supporting the WRU in the bid for the RWC99 and redevelopment of the Stadium. Furthermore the decision to do so was taken quickly as the RWC99 bid had to be submitted within six weeks of his initial engagement with the WRU on the issue. In February 1955 Council officers prepared the presentation material for that bid (Talfan Davies 2008 p153).

More direct engagement then followed in;

i)                    Jointly lobbying other Rugby Unions for their support of the bid for RWC99 and

ii)                  Presenting the proposals for the redevelopment of the National Stadium to WRU regions and clubs to secure their support.

The recently established National Lottery had been identified as a potential source of funding and the WRU had submitted a new National Stadium for consideration as one of the major UK projects of the Millennium Commission. Their initial proposal had been rejected by the Millennium Commission and the Leader of the local authority asked the WRU to suppress that information while he sought a way to reverse the decision. The Leader then took the matter in hand by enlisting the help of intermediaries to secure a personal meeting with the Millennium Commissioner who had been influential in the rejection of the initial bid. 

The Commissioner was persuaded to support a revised bid but did so with certain conditions.

As a result of that meeting there was a crucial shift in emphasis in the revised bid. That was that the application be submitted by a partnership for what would be a NATIONAL Stadium and not exclusively or primarily a WELSH RUGBY UNION Stadium.

The City Council effectively prepared and submitted the revised funding application, not the WRU.

Crickhowell was approached with the proposition that funding for both the Stadium and the Opera House could be secured with full support of Council BUT the Stadium had to take priority to accommodate the Rugby World Cup in 1999. Crickhowell asserted that Virginia Bottomley, a former Cabinet colleague and chair of the Millennium Commission, had indicated that Cardiff could not have two Commission funded major projects. The Leader of the local authority went directly to Bottomley who stated that;

·         each project would be considered on merit and that,

·         there was no technical reason why two projects could not be awarded to the same city or region.

Crickhowell was again approached and still refused to give the stadium priority. He was advised that it would therefore be put to the (controlling) Labour group on the local authority that they openly support the Stadium bid. That was affirmed and was then publicly announced by the Leader in October 1995 at the Cardiff Business Club where Crickhowell was presenting the Opera House proposal (Crickhowell 1997 pps86-87). 

The initial observations that can be made on the evolution of the Stadium project to 1995 are that;

·         The centrality of the stadium and its principal function – International Rugby Football- to Cardiff’s status as a capital had been established from the mid- 1950’s. It was widely valued as a public amenity and a physical representation of symbolic and cultural capital.

·         The aspiration of the WRU and Local Authority was widely shared and enjoyed public support, a critical factor in securing funding from the Millennium Commission.

·         The explicit threat that the national stadium might be relocated elsewhere ensured the direct support of the local authority who devoted significant resources to ensure that both the bid for the Rugby World Cup 1999 and funding were advanced

·         A focussed and cohesive partnership was formed between the WRU and local authority with leadership coming effectively from the latter.

The media inspired ‘contest’

“It is precisely the purpose of the public opinion generated by the press to make the public incapable of judging, to insinuate into it the attitude of someone irresponsible, uninformed.”

(Walter Benjamin quoted in Demetz 1978 p239),

The proposition that there be a new national stadium that would facilitate a credible bid to host the Rugby World Cup of 1999 emerged publicly in early 1995 as the Trust were submitting their bid to the Millennium Commission. The erroneous suggestion that the two projects might necessarily have to compete for such funding developed into a public debate in which the media, both newspapers and broadcasters, “..played a depressingly predictable part” (Talfan Davies 2008 p153). It is unclear as to whether this was initiated by the media or opponents of the Opera House. Crickhowell, perhaps predictably, infers that there was a pro-active campaign on the part of rugby supporters (Crickhowell 1997 p86). The promoters of the opera house had, however, already alienated the local media to some extent as noted above.

The general tone of media coverage was concisely outlined by Talfan Davies as follows.

i)       The Stadium was presented with the positive assertion that ‘Rugby is our great national game’

ii)      The Opera House was presented with two negatives;

‘We all hate modern architecture, don’t we?’ and

 ‘Opera is for toffs’.                                                        

(Talfan Davies 2008 p153)

The first of these assertions may be taken as a given, particularly if the volume of regional media coverage devoted to rugby union football evidenced it to be the pre-eminent sport in Wales. Elsewhere in his account Talfan Davies emphasises the importance of rugby when, as Controller of BBC Wales, he took a call in 1997 to say that they had lost the rights to Welsh Rugby.

“It was a massive blow, far and away the lowest point in my ten years at the BBC. Rugby was at the heart of our television service, both in its content and its economics, and a key to our identification with the Welsh audience.”  (Talfan Davies 2008 p109)

As regards a general antipathy to modern architecture, that can be seen as part of the zeitgeist at that time.  Talfan Davies makes reference to the Prince of Wales who, by the author’s admission, made no direct intervention on the Hadid design of the Cardiff Bay Opera House. The tenuous link was made through the role of Paul Koralek, architectural adviser to the Trust. Koralek had been a partner in Ahrends, Burton and Koralek (ABK Architects) who had designed the proposed extension to the National Gallery, London described by the Prince in 1982 as a "monstrous carbuncle on the face of a much-loved and elegant friend" (Glancey 2004). Were some personal view of the Prince to be implied then the presence of Lord Palumbo on the Assessment Panel might also be cited. His proposal for a Mies van de rohe building at Mansion House Square in the city of London had also attracted widely publicised opposition from the Prince which contributed to the failure to realise that project (Jamieson 2009). What is perhaps implied by Talfan Davies is that the Prince’s views had increasingly informed the public temper and to some extent articulated public opinion at that time (Jencks 1988, Glancey 2004, Moore 2009).

Coupled with this the support for Zaha Hadid from sections of the architectural community can be seen to have further polarised views. Crickhowell quotes Colin Amery, who he describes as ‘…predictably the Prince of Wales’ adviser’, as accusing Hadid of representing ‘the kind of absurd architectural arrogance that the public has long learned to distrust’ (Crickhowell 1997 p28).

The failure of novel architectural innovation to win widespread acclaim is neither new nor confined to a particular region. Regrettably some of the resistance to the selection of Hadid was seen to be both xenophobic and misogynistic (Talfan Davies 2014, Palumbo 2015). Crickhowell was asked directly whether this was a factor and responded;

"If she had been male, white and Welsh would it have been different? I do not know. I hope not. There are those who tell me I am naive. I really don't know ... but I suspect that if it had been a young Welsh-speaking architect who had suddenly produced the design, the Western Mail might have taken a different line." (Patel 1997)

Many years after the event it was still being reported in the national press that Rhodri Morgan, who had since become First Secretary of the Welsh Assembly, had likened her design to a heretical version of the Ka’bah in Mecca, believing that a fatwa would descend upon Cardiff (Ward 2007, Jacobs 2013). The response to such utterances were increasingly patronising or derogatory comments made about Wales and the Welsh by supporters of Hadid  (Glancey 1995, Sudjic 2004).

The impact of media reportage may then be seen to be influential not only in the outcome of this particular case but prejudicial to external perceptions of architectural aspiration in the region.

Any cohesive or vigorous defence of the chosen architect locally had already been compromised by the disagreement as to that choice between members of the selection panel, the Trustees and their sponsors, CBDC. The wider public, making no great distinction between the Trust and its sponsors, would infer a lack of confidence in the selected design within the organisation promoting it. Crickhowell recognised that this was a critical factor in damaging public relations (Crickhowell 1997 p145). It is understandable that the Trust “… took a firm decision not to engage in a slanging match with the rugby supporters” (Crickhowell 1997 p146).

As regards the ‘ opera is for toffs ‘ issue referred to by Talfan Davies, Crickhowell makes extensive reference to the perceptions of elitism in his account. Particular mention is made of the campaign by The Sun newspaper and also to hostile and misleading stories in the Daily Mail (Crickhowell 1997p140,p143). One can have some sympathy with Crickhowell’s complaint that opera was held by the media to be more elitist than rugby (Crickhowell 1997 p143). Wales had a strong tradition of local amateur opera and musical societies in ‘working class’ communities and the perception of opera being enjoyed largely by a privileged class were overstated. However, the WNO did not enjoy unqualified support in some quarters of the wider arts community in Wales where there were perceptions that it received a disproportionate allocation of funding from the regional Arts Council.

  

This has relevance to the issue of conflicting priorities in specific fields of activity and the question as to whether to make;

i)                    Further investment in those individuals or fields of demonstrable excellence or

ii)                  More investment in improving areas of perceived weakness

Within the arts there were then factional interests opposed to a proposal which might absorb a relatively large proportion of the regional budget. These were antipathetic to the case for an Opera House being a ‘flagship’ of the arts in Wales.

Some further aspects relating to elitism may be noted in passing.

a)      A political dimension in that some viewed the Trust, by association, as another of the self-selected elites that manned the ‘Quango State’. It is a matter of fact that many were appointees and opponents could claim that those supporting the Hadid design were, in the main, unelected and unrepresentative of wider society.

b)      However, conditions that were later made by the Welsh Government for funding necessary to complete access ways to the new stadium were directed specifically at the unrepresentative governance of the WRU.

c)      Whilst rugby, as a sport, enjoyed great popularity in the region it is questionable whether access to international games at the stadium is any less elitist than attendance at an opera. The stadium is essentially a private sports facility and admission to it for an international rugby match no less exclusive than opera.

The straw polls conducted by the local media indicated that numerically the stadium would have a three to one advantage were a decision between the two projects to be the matter of public referendum. As Controller of BBC Wales at that time Geraint Talfan Davies stated that;

“One of the very few occasions when I was loudly critical of my own BBC Wales newsroom was when it ran a telephone poll within the evening news programme, Wales Today, asking people to choose. Telephone polls are notoriously unscientific and usually designed to confirm rather than confound prejudices. This was no exception. I thought that they had no place in BBC news programmes, and instructed that they should not be repeated.”(Talfan Davies 2008 pps 154-155)

The observation must be made that Talfan Davies’ intercession on the manner of news coverage could be seen to be a form of media patronage in tempering the negative tone of news reportage. He was, in that respect, a critical friend of the Opera House project as a prominent public and private patron of the arts and architecture in Wales who became Chair of the WNO (twice) and Chair of the Arts Council of Wales.

However, one can concur with his view that such journalistic methods posed entirely false choices and inevitably produce a predictable and familiar pattern in arguments about arts funding. Such false choices are frequently presented by the opponents of publicly funded development whereby values may be represented by other public amenities and services they hold to be more essential. This is also touched upon by Crickhowell who stated that;

“The press were constantly publishing letters from irate readers demanding that instead of lottery millions going to opera houses and other causes which they did not favour, it should be spent on new hospitals and improving education” (Crickhowell 1997 p144)

In this case the public were presented with two false choices;

iii)     That between an opera house or other public services and amenities and

iv)     Choosing between an opera house or a new rugby stadium

The first is a recurrent issue which concerns architectural aspiration being weighed against wider social need and the question; “..what comfort is in an architect’s fame to those who live in slums.” (Wilkinson 2014 p57). However, in this case such comparisons were not invoked as regards the proposed investment in the stadium.

All that we might deduce in this instance is that in a popularity contest the inevitable outcome will be that the more popular contestant will win. However, there is the opportunity to consider both parts of the more telling observation that;

“The greater the decrease in the social significance of an art form, the sharper the distinction between criticism and enjoyment by the public. The conventional is uncritically enjoyed, and the truly new is criticized with aversion.” (Benjamin 1936 p26) 

Rugby union football may be seen to have had greater social significance than opera and the proposed new stadium was widely, and less critically, welcomed. There is no small truth in Crickhowell’s comment that,

“.. those who had been so passionately concerned about the design of an arts centre amid the new buildings arising in Cardiff bay appeared to be entirely uninterested in the appearance of this enormous structure in the very heart of the city. There was no anonymous international competition to design the stadium, no public consultation and no furore about the fanciful drawings of hideous structures that were unveiled at the launch.” (Crickhowell 1997 pps 145-146)

There was also little public examination of the economic case for the enlargement of the stadium to facilitate the hosting of the Rugby World Cup and the perceived financial benefit to the city and region presented by its promoters. In a paper which examined the true worth of hosting the RWC99 Calvin Jones concluded that there were considerable benefits for the region, although many areas of potential benefit were not maximised. This was due in large part to the structure of the bidding process and organisational inadequacies, which in turn led to relatively low spectator spend and mixed press coverage (Jones 2001).

Overall, however, the media debate favoured the Stadium rather than the Opera House in terms of funding from a national source. The latter offered an amenity which would attract visitors to Cardiff, some being from outside Wales. Securing RWC99 through the redevelopment of the Stadium would have ensured international tourism to Cardiff, Wales and the UK. In short the Stadium, by the nature of the events held there, would have the broader ‘reach’ in event led tourism and leisure activity.

As to the longer term benefit claimed for the enlarged stadium locally there was little countervailing assessment of;

-          potential negative impact on other commercial activity in the city centre

-          where net profits from increased activity in leisure, catering, tourism and other service activity would accrue

-          direct net costs to the city in security, crowd and traffic management and cleaning

In that respect the Stadium project had a presumption in its favour which was not extended to the Opera House and, in the absence of effective opposition; claims made in support of that project went largely unchallenged. It must be concluded that the Opera House would not have matched the advantages afforded to the Stadium had there been a real direct contest for funding one or the other.

In the event the ‘contest’ initiated by the media was damaging to the Opera House project in accentuating the inherent weaknesses of that bid.

Outcomes

In 1995, the WRU won the right to host the 1999 Rugby World Cup whilst some Millennium Commissioners were expressing doubts concerning the business plan submitted by the Opera House Trust.  There were four visits to Cardiff by Millennium Commission representatives between June and August 1995 during which time;

i)                    controversy over the design of the opera house continued and

ii)                  media coverage of the ‘competition’ with the Millennium Stadium project was pervasive

On the 20th December 1995 the Millennium Commission met and rejected the Trust’s application for £50m to £60m funding. The Trust was invited to submit a revised bid, which they considered, and there was a meeting with the Millennium Commission in Cardiff to discuss the reasons for the Commission’s rejection of the Business Plan. Controversy over the first design continued until, in March 1996, Crickhowell was advised by Sir Geoffrey Inkin, Chair of CBDC, that the Development Corporation had reached the conclusion that the Zaha Hadid design should be set aside in view of;

a)      the high total cost,

b)      apparent lack of support from the public and from the new Unitary Local Authority for Cardiff, and

c)      the absence of backing from the Millennium Commission for the Business Plan and the scheme as it stood.

CBDC therefore withdrew their support as the chances of those proposals succeeding were extremely limited and felt a totally different approach was required.

The Institute of Welsh Affairs then convened a meeting of the Chairs and Chief Executives of a number of key organisations at the National Museum of Wales on 8 March 1996. Those present were unable to agree on a way forward with the design and the vocal opposition of the then Leader of the Local Authority, Russell Goodway was decisive. Reference is made to Goodway’s rudeness to the representatives of the Welsh National Opera present and quotes him as saying they should not be involved as ‘…after all, what’s WNO bringing to the table?’ (Talfan Davies 2008 p159).  Matters were concluded when;

“Goodway’s provocative philistinism proved too much for Crickhowell who stormed out, slamming half a ton of oak like a clap of thunder.” (Talfan Davies 2008 p160)

Talfan Davies’ observation that Goodway stated that he not been persuaded that there was proven need for a performing arts centre was contradicted by the subsequent actions of the latter.  When the original option for the Opera House site expired the Local Authority stepped in and acquired it from ABP for £2.5m. The decisive action secured the site for the Wales Millennium Centre which succeeded in its application for funding from the Millennium Commission. It was consistent with the assertion of the Leader that;

·          Crickhowell was offered the Council’s support if the funding for the stadium could be secured to facilitate RWC99.

·         Both projects could be secured for the City with such support.

The Cardiff Bay Opera House Trust Board was disbanded in 1996 leaving a skeleton Board, to wind up the Trust.

Conclusions

The Assessment Panel appointed to advise the Cardiff Bay Opera House Trust may be seen to have been vindicated in their selection of Zaha Hadid by the subsequent acclaim of her work elsewhere. Had the Cardiff Bay project been realised as the first of her major projects then the Trust would have been internationally recognised as patrons. Their failure to secure the necessary resources to advance and fully realise that aspiration can be attributed to leadership and organisation. That was clearly much weaker and less effective than that given by the local authority to the Stadium project. Even if the Stadium proposal had not emerged as a 'rival' bid wider confidence in the ability of the Trust to deliver the selected design had been seriously weakened.

A passing observation, made by a regional architect, was that Hadid’s career might have been retarded if funding been approved but the materials, finishes and other architectural details then compromised by a parsimonious budget or cost over-runs. The publicity given to her treatment in Cardiff might have been to her advantage in the longer term in that she was lauded and supported by the architectural press and subsequently commissioned to work in regimes less sensitive to public opinion in their architectural patronage (Riach 2014, Wainwright 2014). Those commissioning such projects were better equipped with the resources and powers to confer upon the designer the degree of autonomy attributed to architectural patronage historically. At Cardiff those who aspired to such patronage lacked autonomy, particularly in respect of financial resources for which they were accountable to third parties and, ultimately, wider society.

Public opinion was a contributory factor in these cases, the polls conducted by the media evincing levels of popular support which suggested a majority favoured the Stadium project. The vox populi, as represented by the media served as a mandate for those in public office to direct resources to the realisation of that objective and was an influential factor in securing the necessary funding. The public debate triggered by the ‘contest’ thereby contributed to the success of the stadium bid in that respect.

The extent to which it was a factor in the failure of the opera house project is not, however, as is generally remembered and widely reported.  The Opera House did not ‘lose a contest’ for funding from the Millennium Commission between it and the Stadium. The very real contest for wider support did, however, throw the Opera House bid into relief and publicly revealed its shortcomings. In addition to having less public support than the Stadium, the Trust’s bid was disadvantaged as regards its resources in terms of finance, leadership and organisation.

The Opera House project displayed many of the characteristics of patronage evidenced historically, being conceived and promoted to fulfil a perceived cultural need, there being no permanent home for the Welsh National Opera or major lyric theatre in Wales. The architect selected, Zaha Hadid, had received few major commissions and therefore was untested.  In contrast, the reconstruction of the National Stadium, long established as the home of Welsh Rugby Union football could be considered the replacement of a commercial sports facility of utilitarian purpose. The commissioning process was one of selecting a designer of proven ability in that field and securing a fixed price contract for its construction.

Both projects aspired to provide public amenity and appeal to a national constituency. They also sought to complement strategies for redefining the profile and external image of the city and region, nationally and internationally. The Stadium was more successful in mobilising wider support, and its wider social and cultural significance was an important element. However the conclusion is that the decisive intervention, support and, above all, leadership of the local authority was the more decisive factor.

As a speculative footnote it just remains to pose the ‘what might have been?’ - 

What if Zaha Hadid had been commissioned to design a stadium for the Rugby World Cup 1999 by the Welsh Rugby Union ……………………………………………….????

           

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[1] http://web.archive.org/web/20071009115105/http://www.millenniumstadium.com/3473_3557.php