Archinect - News

Robots could soon maintain the Sydney Opera House's one million roof tiles

2016-12-27T19:43:00-05:00

One million brilliant white tiles clad the 65m-tall precast concrete roof [...] glazed ceramic tiles need to be hand-checked, or tapped, every five years by specialist engineers, who abseil down the roof “sails” looking for changes in their sound or appearance. Now, thanks to the combined efforts of the opera house, the Getty Foundation, the University of Sydney and the engineering and design group Arup, this expensive, vertigo- inducing process is a step closer to becoming a thing of the past.

Jørn Utzon's saga with the Sydney Opera house coming to the big screen

2016-06-08T13:12:00-04:00

With the working title Utzon, The Man Behind the Opera House, the film will tell the story of Danish architect Jørn Utzon, who was just 38 years old and relatively unknown when he won the international competition to design an opera house on Sydney’s Bennelong Point in 1957... The Sydney Opera House was completed by Australian architect Peter Hall – a handover which ostracised Hall from the architectural community, and which his family believe led to his ruin.

With a screenplay by Oscar-nominated Petter Skavlan, the film promises to get into some thorny emotional terrain. As producer Jan Marnell explains, “We have a world wonder. We have its creator – who wasn’t allowed to see his dream fulfilled. We have creativity versus bureaucracy and political manoeuvring ranging from friend to foe. We have an outstanding architect with streaks of megalomania and genius, and his vengeful opponents who plot to get him out of the country. What do they want? In the end, they want to take back what they believe should have been theirs in the first place.”

What else is going on with the Sydney Opera house?

Archinect Sessions #58: Last week’s architecture news. When it wasn’t so depressing.

2016-03-31T18:58:00-04:00

Collecting the most important news of the past week – that is, from the recording date's perspective of March 30th, the day before Zaha Hadid's sudden death – this episode brings stories on: the winning below-grade skyscraper (sinkscraper?) of eVolo's Skyscraper Competition; a long-lost Le Corbusier tapestry returning to the Sydney Opera House; another twist on co-habitation in the co-work startup, PodShare; Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects taking "revenge" on Charles Moore's Hood Museum; and our future of eating sandwiches while robots do our work.

We'll discuss the late Dame Zaha Hadid's legacy on next week's podcast.

Listen to episode 58 of Archinect Sessions, "Last week’s architecture news. When it wasn’t so depressing.":

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Jørn Utzon's final touch to the Sydney Opera House: a Le Corbusier tapestry

2016-03-29T16:52:00-04:00

[Utzon] wrote to his idol, boldly sending his designs of the Opera House and asking Le Corbusier to contribute in the form of “decoration, carpets and paintings”. His idol wrote back, and by October 1960 the young Utzon was the proud owner of a striking tapestry [...] The piece is now hanging behind glass in the far end of the Utzon-designed western foyer: a holding place while the Opera House continues the “decade of renewal” that will lead up to its 50th anniversary in 2023.

Another look at the tapestry, as it was hung in Jørn Utzon's home in Denmark:

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