Sydney Opera House Essay

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Updated: Feb 13th, 2024

Introduction

There are numerous art works that have been produced before and some of them are where art publications exist. The Sydney Opera house is an instance of where numerous art publications exist making it a place which is used for multiple purposes of performing arts by various artists in different settings.

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The Sydney Opera House is a masterpiece which can never be compared to another due to the way it stands out when compared to other Houses. In fact, according to Braithwaite, in the 20th century, never has been an art publication of great beauty as the Sydney house of opera when he was giving Jørn Utzon the pricktzer price (2007). The Sydney opera house is located in Sydney, Australia.

It has attracted numerous tourists who visit Australia yearly. The Sydney opera house has a parking station which is situated underground. The parking underground parking space was designed to host the numerous cars that visit the Sydney opera house (Drew, 1995).

The field-Stakeholders and partners involved

The key stakeholder of the Sydney Opera House was Jørn Utzon who was an architect from Danish. This is because he was the one who was involved in the design of the performing art centre. What actually assisted him in winning the competition which was global in 1957 was due to the way he visionalised the exterior of the building to appear.

What particularly Jørn Utzon the architect from Danish was concentrated on was the design (Boyd, 1973). The time that would take to build the performing art centre and the total costs that were to be incurred would become none of his business. In the nearby future, Otzon did not realize that this would become a major problem. In finishing the design of the Sydney Opera House.

It should be noted that the project of constructing the Sydney Opera House did not have a project manager but was actually a collaboration between the architect, Jørn Utzon and Ove Arup who was the person appointed as the one in charge of the engineering and the structure of the building (Clark & Pause, 1985).

The other main stakeholder of the Sydney House of Opera was the government of New South Wales. This is because they were the main client. Joe Cahill, who was the labor premier, initiated the project under the authorization of the government of Australia (Fromonot, 2000). The client appointed people who did not have the technical skills required to act as the part time executive committee (Dellora & Wansbrough, 1998).

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The client acted as a huge obstacle to the construction of the Sydney Opera House since it was busy making changes when the project was continuing. They therefore contributed to the delay of the project and worse still, cost overrun. Worse still was the appointment of a new minister due to the formation of a new government who stopped giving Utzon his salary (Giurgola, 1980).

The consulting firms and the companies which were involved externally acted as stakeholders. The Sydney opera House would later require new techniques which were offered by them for instance computer-based 3D images.

The last stakeholder was the public that is the citizens of Australia since they would act as the clients of the newly constructed building. In addition to that, the public supported Utzon on his major come back after his resignation in 1966 (Kerr, 1993).

The theory

From the onset of the project, a lot of delays and risks were associated with its construction till the end. From the way they chose the architect, the project no wonder took quite a long time to complete. It is said that Utzon, before delivering his design did not seek any approval of any engineer.

Not that Utzon did not do a perfect design, if he had sought for assistance then the redesigning of the project would not occur that much (Baume, 1967). Going to the people who were involved in the construction of the Sydney Opera House, they left all the final decisions to be made by Utzon.

They say two heads are better than one but although his assistant Ove Arup was involved in the decision making, the final decision maker was always Utzon (Park, 1973).

Many redesigns and reconstruction of the Sydney Opera House occurred under Utzon as the final decision maker. There was nothing to debate about since Utzon was viewed as the leading professional person in the management team.

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This in turn did not go well for him since a lot of expenditure occurred and time was delayed leading to the government mistrusting him on whether he was really capable of the duties that he had been appointed (Ove Arup & Partners 1973).

As a result, the Sydney Opera House of Trust was created to assist in the management of the Sydney Opera House. Due to their lack of awareness on construction and designing issues, the committee that was appointed agreed most of the time to what Utzon had to offer.

After sitting two years doing nothing, the committee came up with an idea of increasing the number of rooms unlike in the initial design. Their efforts were futile since they were not educated on the construction and the way to go (Sommer et al., 1994).

In addition to that the techniques that were to be involved in the construction were never been tried before by any one. In order to calculate the stress points that would be used to support the roof, computers proved to be an important invention in that project. The costs of the project were under estimated since they lacked the knowhow of what would be involved in the project (Utzon, 1965).

The object

The object that was to be constructed was the Sydney Opera House. The Sydney Opera House was to act as a substitute for the existing performing theatre since it proved to be small. Although the building did not end up as originally designed, the Sydney Opera house has five auditoria which are counted as its rooms making the building have a total of approximately 1000 rooms (Andersen, 2005).

Although the building proved to be an artifact that would be written in the books of history, there were major complications that were involved. For starters, the client took a major risk since they ordered the commencement of the Sydney Opera House way before the intended design was finished.

The manner in which the artistic roof was to be created and the interior of the Sydney House of Opera were to be created as the ground work of the building was continuing (Nobis, 2004).

In addition to that, he was put in a position that he had to make sure that the interior space which he was design was enough to sustain the required number of seats which would accommodate a large audience more than three thousand five hundred. The construction of the roof in specific the outer shell proved to be an uphill task. Although its design was put in books, it was hard to be in reality.

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In addition to that, the original design of the interior proved not to be stable since they were required to be changed repeatedly. This means that as the interior designed changed, the outer shells had to be at par with it in changing (Rogers, 2001).

The designer

The life that Utzon lived including his travels acted as a major inspiration for the design of the Sydney Opera House. In fact, he had never been to Sidney before especially the place where the construction was to take place. However, he took advantage of the background of maritime that he possessed to understand the naval charts of the Sydney harbor (Mikami, 2001).

The outer shells, which are sometimes referred to as sails of the Sydney Opera House, were as a result of his experience with shipbuilding. In addition to that due to the fact that he was conversant with ship building, the challenges of constructing the Sydney Opera House gave him a smother time.

His acquaintance with Mexico gave him the inspiration that actually the building would be placed on a horizontal wide platform (Hall Todd & Littlemore, 1968).

Otzon began his work in 1959 after a ground ceremony in which Joe officiated. Joe Cahill was the New South Wales Premier. During the start of the construction program, Otzon had a smooth running since he could alter his designs in whatever manner he wanted.

Altering of the designed proved to be quite costly for the government. In addition to that, time was running out of hand, when the new government was appointed, came new Minister who was to oversee the running of the project (Metcalf, 2001). The project was estimated to be finished in 1963 but in 1965, the project was still behind the schedule that was approximated to be finished.

The client which was the government decided that it would no longer offer payments to Otzon. David, who was the administrator for public works, claimed refunds. In 1966, Otzon quit and the money was refunded (Romthon & William, 2006).

The original estimated amount of budget of expenses was AUS$7 million after the design was submitted. But according to Murray (2004), his government donated AUS$100,000 and then came up with a lottery that was to come up with the remaining cash. The construction exceeded what was estimated and to make it worse the project was already late. This is because the original design of the Sydney Opera House kept changing.

Methodology

The roof of the Sydney Opera house is panels made from solid precast. They are usually supported by the ribs which are also made from concrete which is precast. The covering of the shells is white/cream tiles made from Sweden. If you observe the shell from a far, they appear to be in a uniform white. The exterior of the Sydney Opera Building consist of panels which are combined formed from pink granite (Hall, 1981).

The artifact

There are numerous reasons that are attributed to why the Sydney house of Opera has become an architect to recon about. One of the reasons as to why the Sydney house of opera has been associated as a piece of work worth writing home about is due to the fact that in 2007, June 28, the UNESCO made it a site for world heritage.

This means that since the building has been made by the UNESCO as a site for world heritage, the parking space has numerous cars parked in it daily. The Sydney opera house has earned both Sydney and Australia recognition since it is a masterpiece in which modern architecture is represented. The Sydney house of opera has been classified as one of the best performing art centers (The Sydney House of Opera).

In addition to that the Sydney house of opera is among the most visited place by tourists that visit Australia. According to the Sydney opera house annual report of 2008/2009, the tourist attraction site hosts over seven million people who visit it every year (The Sydney Opera House Report, 2008). The Sydney house of opera parking space therefore is busy due to the numerous tourists who visit the Sydney house of opera.

The many performing acts companies in Sydney also rely on the Sydney House of Opera as a venue of hosting its arts performance. Some of the organizations who are associated to it include the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, the Opera Australia, The Sydney Theatre Company and the Australian Ballet.

Due to its association to many companies as their venue for performing acts, it is in fact one of the busiest performing centers in the globe as it hosts an average of 1,500 performances. The performances are attended by over one million people (Messent, 1997).

The Sydney Opera House of Trust administers the Sydney House of Opera which is usually under the New South Wales Ministry of the Arts. Near the Sydney Harbor Bridge in the Sydney Harbor, the Sydney House of Opera is located on the Bennelong point. The central business district of Sydney is on the north eastern side of the Sydney House of Opera (Hall Todd & Littlemore 1973).

Furthermore, another reason why the performing arts centre has been attributed to a multitude of people visiting it is because the architecture of the building received the Pritzker Prize in 2003 as the highest honor. Many tourists and art lovers must make a stop at the Sydney House of Opera to make sure that they document its existence through their cameras as it is truly a landmark.

Conclusion

Although the Sydney Opera House is a masterpiece worth reckoning, there were numerous risks and problems that were associated to it. For starters, the building even began being constructed before its design was fully complete and this brought about the risk of confusion and possible bringing down to rectify the plan.

The alteration of the design added to extra expenses being spent and additional time required a thing that could have been avoided if proper designing had been done initially. Though the original architect of the design left way before the completion of the building together with his drawings, the completion of the project was finished and opened as a performing art centre.

References

Andersen, MA, 2005, ‘Embedded emancipation: the field of Utzon’s platforms,’ Fabrications, Vol.15, No. 1, 27– 37.

Baume, M, 1967, The Sydney Opera House affair. Melbourne: Nelson.

Boyd, R, 1973, ‘A night at the opera house,’ Architecture Plus, 49–55.

Braithwaite, D, 2007, ‘Opera House wins top status,’ The Sydney Morning Herald.

Clark, RH, and Pause, M, 1985, Precedents in architecture. Van Nostrand Reinhold: New York.

Dellora, D, and Wansbrough, I, 1998, The edge of the possible. Video recording narrated by Robyn Nevin, Film Art Doco Production and the Australian Film Finance Corporation, n.p.

Drew, P, 1995, Sydney Opera House: Jørn Utzon, Architecture in detail series. Phaidon Press: London.

Fromonot, F, 2000, Jørn Utzon: architect of the Sydney Opera House. Electa: Milan.

Giurgola, R, 1980, Jørn Utzon in Emanuel, M (ed) Contemporary architects, Macmillan: London.

Hall Todd & Littlemore, 1973, Green book, State Records. US: New South Wales.

Hall Todd & Littlemore c., 1968, White book, AONSW reel 2559, State Records. US: New South Wales.

Hall, P, 1981, Great planning disasters. Penguin: Harmondsworth.

Kerr, J, S, 1993, Sydney Opera House: an interim plan for the conservation of the Sydney Opera House and its site. Sydney Opera House Trust: Sydney.

Messent, D, 1997, Opera House: act one. David Messent Photography: Sydney.

Metcalf, A, 2001, Aurora Place, Renzo Piano, Sydney. The Watermark Press: Sydney.

Mikami, Y, 2001, Utzon’s sphere. Shokokusha: Tokyo.

Murray, P, 2004, The Sage of the Sydney Opera House. New York: Taylor & Francis.

Nobis, P, 2004, ‘Utzon and the curved form world in Holm, MJ, Kjeldsen, K and Marcus, M (eds),’ Jørn Utzonthe architects’ universe, 46 – 53.

Ove Arup & Partners, 1973, ‘Special issue on the Sydney Opera House,’ The Arup Journal, Vol. 8, No. 3.

Park, R, 1973, The companion guide to Sydney. Collins: Sydney and London.

Romthon, Jr., and William, G, 2006, Project Management for Design Professionals. Chicago, Illinois: AEC Education.

Rogers, R, 2001, The Independent, London, quoted in Carter, forthcoming.

Sommer, D, Stöcher, H & Weisser, L, 1994, Ove Arup and Partners: engineering of the built Environment. Birkhauser: Basel.

Sydney Opera House Architect, 2000, ‘’. Web.

The building-Sydney opera House, ‘.’ Web.

The Sydney House of Opera Annual Report, 2008/2009, Annual Report. Sydney: Australia.

Utzon, J, 1965a, ‘The Sydney Opera House,’ Zodiac (Milan), No. 14, 36–93, reprinted in Weston, R 2002,134 –135.

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