The Other Spot

Not long ago, the Danish Joern Utzon won the prestigious Pritzker Architecture Prize (the equivalent of the Nobel Prize in this category) for the design of this unique building: the Sydney Opera House. The jury described it as “one of the most symbolic buildings of the twentieth century, a masterpiece, an image of great beauty … a symbol not only of a city but an entire country.”

His project had not been chosen among the five finalists (out of 233 that were submitted), but a well-known architect, member of the jury, Eero Saarinen, was who saw the drawings of the future Utzon Opera. Curiously, his creator, Utzon left the project in 1966 by serious disagreements with the government of New South Wales and the loud complaints he received from the Australian population, who considered the building too modernist and abstract. The original idea was too expensive to implement, and had to be three Australian architects who completed the work in 1973, when it was opened with the opera War and Peace. Its original creator never returned to Australia to visit.

But it is curious that in itself is Sydney where he is accused of modernist architect, since this city is also called “the New York Southern Hemisphere,” for its skyscrapers, its modernity, for its atmosphere and vitality.

He said at the time the architect, the idea arose while he was peeling an orange and opened its branches. The peel of an orange shaped domes, and in that half-Swedish tiles forming the roof of the building and give it that strong contrast in the bay. A concrete base covered with granite, covered with white ceramic tiling up the rest of this unique monument. And that perfectly recognizable silhouette, like a ship with sails to the wind they were deployed, which appears to vary the point where you look, and where the lights of day and night, play with their volumes, facades, with its staircases and windows …

The Sydney Opera House is now one of the most active interpretive centers in the world. Inside are several rooms dedicated to music, with capacity for 2900 people, and the theater with 1547 seats.