Opera House
Páginas
4 de julio de 2010
Why the Opera House ?
Simple... look at the beauty of this structure... The Opera House has an original design that makes it the principal symbol of Australia, Sydney. Now, add to this the functional propouse that accomplish this structure, to be an espectacular place for thetrical presentations with a unic view to the Sydney Harbour.
The Opera House is one of my favorites structures. I hope that, as I do, you wish to be there after you visited this blog...
Paola m.
About the Context
Sydney is the largest and most populous city in Australia, and is the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia’s south-east coast of the Tasman Sea with approximate population of 4,5million.
Sydney has a temperate climate with warm summers and cool winters, and rainfall spread throughout the year.The weather is moderated by proximity to the ocean, and more extreme temperatures are recorded in the inland western suburbs
Performing arts:
The Sydney Town hall, city Recital Hall, The State Theater, Theatre Royal, etc.
Historical Background
On 1954 Gossens get the support of NSW Premier Joseph Cahill, who called for designs for a dedicated opera house.Gossens also insist that the Opera house should be build on the Sydney Bay.
The Design contest began on september 13, 1955 and received a total of 233 entries, representing architects from 32 countries that were looking for the 100.000 $ price.
The winner design was announce on 1957. The winner was the danish architec Jorn Utzon. He helped through all the construction of the building.
Characteristics of the Design
The Sydney Opera House is an Expressionist construction; the expressionis was a movement relevant because of it deformation of the reality, we can perceive this in the design of the opera house, the big prefabricated shells on the exterior, gives the Opera House some kind of closed and unique Rhythm on the shapes, the shells also has different sizes and some of it has different directions.
The interior of the opera house is cover with warm colors including the carpets. The porpouse of this is to make the people feel more comfortable and relax, so the people can enjoy better the preformance.
The Opera House has 183m of length and 120m of width. The structure rest on 580 inmerse pillars
The roof is cover with 1.056 millions of white glazed tiles that give the exterior of the opera house a unique bumpy texture that you can appreciate only if you are close enough, but if you are looking from a considerable distance the visual texture appears to be pretty smooth in all the surface.
The texture on the inside of the structure is variable. From the
smooth surface of the pink granite from Nueva Gales, the texture of the wood in some of the walls and the soft texture of the carpet.
When the sun light falls all over the glazed tile surface of the Opera House it shines and appear to stand out from all the other structures. The night illumination is pretty good too, a lot of colorfull lights around the floor of the structure give enough of an impact to be great and not falling into a bad taste.
The inside illumination tend to be pretty low inside the halls and a general illumination on the corredors for the people to see.
The project was built in three stages.
Stage I (1959-1963) consisted of building the upper podium.
Commenced on March 2, 1959 by the construction firm Civil & Civic, monitored by the engineers Ove Arup and Partners. The government had pushed for work to begin early, fearing that funding, or public opinion, might turn against them. However, Utzon had still not completed the final designs. Major structural issues still remained unresolved. By 23 January 1961, work was running 47 weeks behind, mainly because of unexpected difficulties (inclement weather, unexpected difficulty diverting stormwater, construction beginning before proper construction drawings had been prepared, changes of original contract documents). Work on the podium was finally completed in February 1963. The forced early start led to significant later problems, not least of which was the fact that the podium columns were not strong enough to support the roof structure, and had to be re-built
Construction
Stage II (1963–1967) saw the construction of the outer shells.
The shells of the competition entry were originally of undefined geometry, but, early in the design process, the "shells" were perceived as a series of parabolas supported by precast concrete ribs
The design work on the shells involved one of the earliest uses of computers in structural analysis, in order to understand the complex forces to which the shells would be subjected. In mid-1961, the design team found a solution to the problem: the shells all being created as sections from a sphere. This solution allows arches of varying length to be cast in a common mold, and a number of arch segments of common length to be placed adjacent to one another, to form a spherical section.
Shell ribs
Stage III (1967–1973) consisted of the interior design and construction.
The acoustic advisor, Lothar Cremer, confirmed to the Sydney Opera House Executive Committee (SOHEC) that Utzon's original acoustic design only allowed for 2000 seats in the main hall and further stated that increasing the number of seats to 3000 as specified in the brief would be disastrous for the acoustics. According to Peter Jones, the stage designer, Martin Carr, criticised the "shape, height and width of the stage, the physical facilities for artists, the location of the dressing rooms, the widths of doors and lifts, and the location of lighting switchboards."
Interior
Dynamics
* The Concert Hall, with 2,678 seats, is the home of the Sydney Symphony and used by a large number of other concert presenters. It contains the Sydney Opera House Grand Organ, the largest mechanical tracker action organ in the world, with over 10,000 pipes.
* The Opera Theatre, a proscenium theatre with 1,507 seats, is the Sydney home of Opera Australia and The Australian Ballet.
* The Drama Theatre, a proscenium theatre with 544 seats, is used by the Sydney Theatre Company and other dance and theatrical presenters.
* The Playhouse, an end-stage theatre with 398 seats.
* The Studio, a flexible space with a maximum capacity of 400 people, depending on configuration.
* The Utzon Room, a small multi-purpose venue, seating up to 210.
* The Forecourt, a flexible open-air venue with a wide range of configuration options, including the possibility of utilising the Monumental Steps as audience seating, used for a range of community events and major outdoor performances.
Other areas (for example the northern and western foyers) are also used for performances on an occasional basis. Venues at the Sydney Opera House are also used for conferences, ceremonies, and social functions.
Other facilities
The building also houses a recording studio, cafes, restaurants and bars and retail outlets. Guided tours are available to the public, including a frequent tour of the front-of-house spaces, and a daily backstage tour which takes visitors backstage to see areas normally reserved for performers and crew members.
Circulation
The horizontal circulation consist in a lot of longs corridors from the entrance and through all the way to the stairs and to the halls.
Some of the corridors not only take you to the place you want to go, also can give you an amazing view of the lake through big glass panels .
Curiosities
1. The Opera House on sydney was one of the 21 structures nominated to be one of the new 7 world wonders but at the end it wasn't choose
2. The form of the Opera House had been used as the Logo of the medals on the 2000 Olimpics in Sydney
3.In the famous Pixar animation studios movie "Finding Nemo" there are scenes at the end of the movie were the Opera House appears in the background