In Sydney they usually don’t eat oranges. And although the Australian city owes part of its appeal to this very Mediterranean fruit that awakened the unique spatial conception and imagination of the brilliant Danish architect Jørn Utzon.
It was the year 1957 when more than 320 projects signed by technical studies from over thirty countries were submitted for the Sydney Opera House construction competition. Utzon was the chosen candidate despite proposing a simple three-building scheme without the minute details of an architectural project of this magnitude.
Everyone was surprised by the selection of Utzon’s original drawing with an ill-defined shape surmounted by vaults he called shells representing the white sails of the ships crossing the ocean. The simple sketch convinced the jury that the Sydney Opera House would become one of the most extraordinary buildings in the world.
The engineer chosen to carry out this exciting project was British Ove Arup with extensive experience in this type of challenge. Both Arup and his team had great difficulty calculating the outrageous structure proposed by the Danish architect, failing to find a satisfactory solution despite using the most powerful computers of the time. For years, mathematical formulas related to ellipses, parabolas and other geometric shapes were searched for, without finding a suitable result.
One morning in late 1961, Jørn Utzon’s acuity became evident when, over lunch, he demonstrated that the shells on the cover of his opera were fragments of spheres, and for this he cut up an orange in the form of spherical triangles.
The building was completed and inaugurated by Queen Elizabeth II on October 20, 1973, so this year we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Sydney Opera House. Although the history of its construction is relegated to the background, for the world of architecture it represents one of the most legendary episodes of the profession. The magical way in which the various precast concrete pieces were put together and covered with mosaics was due to Utzon’s intuition when he understood that all the surfaces of the Sydney Opera House buildings could be part of a sphere of constant radius.
There was no shortage of fireworks at the opening ceremony and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony was represented. Utzon received the prestigious Pritzker Prize in 2003 and the modern Opera House building was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2007.
Source: La Verdad
I am David Jackson, a highly experienced professional in the news industry. I have been working as an author at Today Times Live for over 10 years, and specialize in covering the entertainment section. My expertise lies in writing engaging stories that capture readers’ attention and deliver timely information about the latest developments.
