Newspaper reporter Pearl Keogh has put her job in jeopardy to become involved in the anti-war movement. She is desperate to locate her two runaway brothers before they’re called to serve in the Vietnam War. Newly arrived from Sweden, Axel Lindquist is set to work as a sculptor on the besieged Sydney Opera House. He seeks to reinvent himself in this utterly foreign landscape, and finds artistic inspiration --- and salvation --- in the monument to modernity that is being constructed on Sydney’s Harbor. But as the nation hurtles towards yet another war, Jørn Utzon, the Opera House’s controversial architect, is nowhere to be found --- and Axel fears that the past he has tried to outrun may be catching up with him.