Conceived and built amid decades of bitter wrangling over its design and cost, Sydney Opera House began celebrating its 30th birthday yesterday as one of the world's best known buildings and a celebrated architectural masterpiece.
"It has become an icon, a symbol of our city and our country," Norman Gillespie, the concert venue's chief executive, said this week. "The building itself and the performances it showcases excite people around the world."
But the birthday celebrations have also shone a spotlight on what critics say are the substandard acoustics of its main concert hall and other performance spaces.
Plans are already under way to modify the chambers to improve acoustics but Philip Drew, biographer of the opera house's Danish designer, Joern Utzon, wrote this week that the building's operators should consider wholesale changes.
"A comprehensive rebuild of the Opera House halls is probably out of the question but it is worth considering," he wrote in an article for national daily The Australian.
"The long-term consequences of partially solving the acoustic defects could be severe and would not ensure world-class acoustics in the halls," he added. "Anything less will condemn Sydney's great icon to slow decline and fading of its international status."
Sitting proudly on a headland that juts into Sydney Harbor, the Opera House and its white shelled roofs were designed to symbolize the sails of the hundreds of yachts that ply the glittering blue waters around Australia's most populous city.
The building was first conceived in the 1940s as an answer to the lack of venues for opera and concerts in Sydney.
In 1956, the government of New South Wales state announced an international design competition. Utzon, at the time a young Danish architect, was selected the winner from 233 entries around the world.
It took Utzon and the engineering firm chosen to realize his dream more than three years to come up with new engineering techniques needed to move his groundbreaking design from the drawing board to reality.
Construction began in 1959, but was plagued from the start with design and engineering difficulties and cost overruns that triggered political controversy. Utzon deserted the project in 1966 following bitter arguments with state authorities over its interior design, the time delays and rising costs.
The opera house had been expected to take four years to complete at a cost of about A$7 million (US$3.6 million). It was finished in 1973 and the final bill came in at about A$100 million (US$51.5 million).
Britain's Queen Elizabeth II, Australia's head of state, formally opened the building on Oct. 20, 1973.
"This, without question, must be the most innovative, the most daring, the most dramatic and in many ways, the most beautiful home constructed for the lyric and related muses in modern times," wrote Martin Bernheimer, music critic of the Los Angeles Times, one of hundreds of international journalists who visited Sydney for the opening.
To celebrate its birthday, the Opera House has organized a series of performances and exhibitions starting yesterday, with a concert of symphony music, opera, jazz, ballet and film encapsulating the history of the building.
Each year about 4 million people visit the building, a quarter to attend performances and the rest to admire its stunning architecture.
Utzon, now 83 years old and too frail to travel, has been invited to consult on a multimillion dollar makeover of the building to improve its acoustics and access. His son and business partner Jan was in Sydney for yesterday's festivities.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of