The Sydney Opera House has officially unveiled a little known tapestry designed by Le Corbusier, originally commissioned for the Opera House by Jørn Utzon.

The 6.5-square-metre wool tapestry Les Dés Sont Jetés (“The Dice Are Cast”) has now been installed at the Opera House, where it was originally intended to hang, after hanging for decades in Utzon’s own home in Hellebæk, Denmark.

Last year, the Sydney Opera House acquired the tapestry with the help of philanthropists at an auction in Copenhagen.

Utzon wrote to Le Corbusier, whom he had much admired, in 1958, one year after winning the design competition for the Sydney Opera House. He enclosed drawings of his design and requested a piece of “decoration, carpet and painting.”

Le Corbusier’s design features visual references to the site as well as topographical and cultural references.

“The graphical sign positioned in the bottom right of the tapestry – white lines on a black ground appearing to represent a crying face and, simultaneously, the letter ‘P’ – appears to be produced by tracing over the competition issue site plan of Bennelong Point,” described University of Queensland’s associate professor of architecture Antony Moulis. “The graphic outline forming the centre of the ‘P’ is in fact an outline of the distinctive plan footprint of the tram depot previously housed on Bennelong Point.”

The tapestry was produced in France in 1960 and delivered to Utzon’s home. In 1966, Utzon left Australia and the Sydney Opera House project after butting heads with the NSW Government. The Opera House opened in 1973, but the tapestry was never installed.

The tapestry now hangs in the Western Foyers, one of two interiors designed by Utzon himself.

“It is wonderful to be injecting such an extraordinary piece of the original DNA back into the Opera House,” said Louise Herron, CEO of Sydney Opera House.

In 2004, Utzon’s own tapestry, Homage to CPE Bach, was installed in the Utzon room of the Opera House.