ICONIC, PROBLEMETIC AND MAGNIFICENT: THE SIDNEY OPERA
Eduardo Cadaval
Visiting the Sydney Opera House can be as significant for an architect as making the pilgrimage of the Camino de Santiago for a Catholic. Some day you have to try to do it. The most iconic of the world’s buildings does not disappoint and shows that – despite what the repentant European publishing establishment now seeks to dictate – iconic buildings can play an enormously important role. The magnificent building by Jørn Utzon proves that on some occasions – rarely, yes – an iconic project is capable of qualifying an urban area, becoming the pride of a city and a symbol of an entire country.
That is the case of the Sydney Opera House, a project with a complicated history where they exist: a building that began to be built without the construction project having been completed; that changed its configuration, its capacity and the use originally proposed for its rooms; whose covers were not defined, nor technically resolved, during a third part of the work; and that it took 15 years to complete and multiplied its initial work budget many times. A building that for a long time was a true public scandal, whose author was fired at once from the construction process and who vowed not to set foot in Australia again in response to the modifications that were made to the original project.
These are just some schematic data of a project that practically ended the closure of its author (the scandal of the problematic construction process of the opera isolated him from access to many other commissions), who after having moved to Sydney from Denmark to supervise the construction of the Opera finally took refuge in Mallorca, building for itself a house, which is also a lesson in architecture.
The basic idea of the Sydney Opera House is so powerful that despite being a truncated project – the major modifications with respect to the original project were made inside – it is still a magnificent building. In addition to the sculptural roofs, it is essential to understand the urban operation. The project in its entirety is not only a roof of enormous plastic richness, it is also a platform and an overall approach that turns these roofs into the sculptural element that crowns a wise urban strategy that revitalized one of the most significant places in the city.
The Opera House is located on the Bennelong Pointen Peninsula at one end of Circular Quay in Sydney Harbor. The project manages to lengthen the promenade and serves as a link with the botanical garden and with one of the largest parks in the city that surrounds the bay of Farm Cove. The Opera counterbalances the spectacular Sydney Harbor Bridge, built at the beginning of the 20th century and which, together with the Opera House, is the city’s largest bulwark.
What is especially interesting about the history of the Sydney Opera House is that it contradicts all the principles of what is currently politically correct. On occasions – also counted – it is justifiable that the great works have been carried out through convulsive processes and cannot be judged only by their immediate results. Transgressing the limits of human creation is not easy and the processes to achieve it cannot always be harmonious. Gaudí’s Eiffel Tower or La Pedrera -just to cite a couple of examples-, suffered at the time the fiercest of criticism, even demanding their demolition by various sectors of society and yet no one could now imagine Paris or Barcelona without them.
The Decade Awards, created by the Oscar Tusquets Foundation, awarded 10 buildings – one for each one – that will be 10 years old. The award, which was failed by a single individual (a highly prestigious architect invited for each occasion, personally visited all the projects) had as a main requirement that the buildings that were eligible for the award had 10 years of life at the time of being judged. Quite a posture. An award that did not judge the newest image or the latest trend, but rather how the building was used and how it had survived the passing of the years. As in the case of the Sydney Opera House, the buildings need time to be assimilated; the cities that receive them as well.
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