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Sydney Opera House

The Sydney Opera House is one of the iconic buildings of the 20th century and one of the few buildings to be erected in that century that is instantly recognisable in just about every country in the world. It's a building some people travel half way around the world to see, and marvel at its shape and setting. That it has one of the most inadequate, ill-designed opera theatres every built is irrelevant to all but those who use if for the function it was built for - what matters to the rest is that it represents Sydney, and indeed Australia, to many people of the world.

The Sydney Opera House had its origins in 1947, when English composer and Conductor of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra Eugene Goossens, himself a descendant of explorer James Cook, persuaded the government of the day that Sydney should have its own opera theatre and that Bennelong Point was the ideal location for such a building. On 13th September, 1955, the Premier of New South Wales, John Joseph (Joe) Cahill, announced an international competition which invited the world's leading architects to design an Opera House for Sydney. The prize for the winning entry was ?5,000. 233 entries were received, and the winner, announced on 29th January 1957, was 38-year old Danish architect Joern Utzon. Second prize was won by an American group and an English company gained third place.
Utzon hailed from the small village of Hellebaek on Denmark's northern sea coast. His fascination with a nearby castle as a boy gave birth to his interest in architecture. Later in life he travelled widely and was impressed by the plinth formation of the ancient Mayan temples of Mexico which strongly influenced his inclusion of a giant podium in his prize-winning opera house design.
The main feature of Utzon's design, however, was a series of shell-shaped roof vaults which suggested the sails of yachts in silhouette. Early sketches by Utzon which demonstrate the form of the roof "sails" suggest Utzon's inspiration may have been the segments of an orange.
Utzon's sails also bear a striking resemblance to the roof structure of a number of Malibu homes designed by American architect Harry Gesner. His "Eagle's Watch" and "Wave House", built in 1956, were featured in European architecture magazines at the time Utzon was working on his Opera House design. Whilst he has never confirmed that Gesner's designs inspired his Opera House sails, Utzon has never denied it either.


The Wave House (1956) of Malibu architect Harry Gesner. Did it inspire the Sydney Opera House sails?

Selecting the design was one thing, turning its reality was another. What Utzon had submitted was only a set of sketches, preliminary plans and elevations and it was only after the design had been accepted that it became known that Utzon had not yet taken his idea beyond the preliminary concept stage. At first, no one questioned the feasibility of the project, but so complex became the task of creating the huge roof vaults, many in architectural circles began to believe the design to be unbuildable. 3,000 hours of computer time were put into the shells and roof calculations alone which took eight years to finish, five years more than the Government had allowed for the completion of the whole project. Technological barriers had to be broken, adding greatly to the cost and time required to finish the project. Construction was planned in three sections - the building of the podium; the roof shells; finishing, equipment and furnishing. Preliminary construction work began in May 1958.
A series of public lotteries were launched to raise the money to build the Opera House. Tickets were sold at a cost of pounds 3 each, with each lottery having 100,000 tickets and offering a major prize of 200,000 pounds. The first lottery was drawn on 1st June 1960. Five weeks later, 8 year old Graeme Thorne, the son of one of the winners, was kidnapped near his family home in Bondi. On 16th August his body was found even though the ransom had been paid. Their address had been published. Their terrible experience led to a Not For Publication option being introduced in all lotteries. Soil, shrub, mortar and hair samples found on the blanket that wrapped his body eventually led police to his murderer, Stephen Leslie Bradley, who was charged with, and ultimately convicted of, the kidnapping of young Graeme Thorne.
Full story.
A change of Government in May 1965 saw Robert (later sir) Askin take over as the new Premier of NSW and David Hughes as minister for Public Works, under whose portfolio the building of the Opera House came. Alarmed that the estimated cost of the project had risen by 600% to 2 5 million pounds, Hughes asked Utzon for a likely completion date and final cost. Utzon would not give him an answer, saying that much of the work being carried out was experimental. Hughes said that the time for experimentation was over and insisted that the plans be modified so that conventional building methods could be used. Utzon's refusal led to an impasse which resulted in him leaving the project in February 1966. He then left Sydney, never to return again to see the structure in its completed glory.
Hughes appointed a new team of architects to complete the project. They prepared a comprehensive review of the project, detailing work done, work yet to be completed and a plan for its completion. The plan included a drastic revision of Utzon's plan for the interior, a fundamental change being the scrapping of a combined Concert Hall and Opera Theatre. The revised plan, presented to and approved by the Government in 1968, revised the final cost at $85 million (41.5 million pounds in Imperial currency which was changed to decimal in 1966) and set the end of 1972 as the targeted completion date. The last segment of the last rib of the roof was positioned in January 1967, ending the completion of the second section.
The peak of construction was reached in mid-1972 with more than 1,200 workers engaged on the site with at least that number again involved in the production off the site. Materials were brought in from around the world - exterior tiles from Sweden; interior tiles from Austria and Japan; lighting and curtains from Germany; carpets from New South Wales and Victoria; heat pumps from USA; technical advice from Philips in Holland and General Electric in Britain. After completion, the concert hall was tested for acoustics with a performance by the Sydney Symphony Orchestra on 17th December 1972. The installation of the Concert Hall's great organ, the largest of its kind in the world with 11,000 pipes, was not completed until 1976.
Officially opened on 20th October 1973 by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, the Sydney Opera House was completed 16 years of planning and construction began at a final cost of $102 million, some $95 million above the original estimate. Towering 66 metres above its 20 metre high podium, the peak of the highest shell is 9 metres higher than the roadway of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, and is the height of a 22 storey office building.

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