The ins and outs of Robert Stein's construction of Sydney Opera House

A Sydney Opera House made Djolash Utzon famous overnight, made Sydney famous in the world and even changed the history of Australia. It is also the Sydney Opera House, which turned Djolash Utzon against the Australian government for nearly half a century. Since the day when 1966 left, he has never set foot in Australia, nor has he seen the Sydney Opera House designed by himself, which is recognized as one of the greatest buildings in the 20th century. 1954, the Special Committee of New South Wales, Australia was ordered to plan and build the Opera House. At first, the convenient corridor corner surrounded by the sea on three sides was chosen as the construction site of the Opera House from 30 locations. 1955 September 13, Joseph Cahill, then head of the ruling Labor Party in New South Wales, issued a tender for the design of the Sydney Opera House to the world, which opened the curtain of dramatic ups and downs in the design and completion of the Sydney Opera House.

1. Judging from the eliminated scheme, "it will surely become a great and extraordinary creation". By the end of 1957, 233 design proposals from 32 countries had participated in the design bidding of "Sydney Opera House". As a member of the main selection committee, American architect Sha Lining (the designer of Dulles and Kennedy International Airport in new york) was late for some reason. He was not satisfied with the ten schemes selected by other judges, but found out the only scribbled design scheme of Danish architect joslash utzon, and praised it as "a great and extraordinary creation". According to Wu Zun's memory, his earliest exterior design of Sydney Opera House was inspired by peeling oranges: 14 petal buildings can be combined into a perfect spherical building. On the recommendation of Sha Lining, Wu Zun's scheme won the bid. This result surprised the industry and caused constant criticism, even Wu Song himself was surprised. At that time, 37-year-old Wu Zun was still a nobody in the field of architecture, but he designed some private houses, and his design was like a preliminary painting without any details. Anyway, uzun was so excited about winning the first big project that he immediately came up with the idea of immigrating to Australia (1963, during the construction of the Opera House, uzun's family moved to Bitworth, Sydney). Uzun did not expect that he was about to fall into the Australian political whirlpool. Why is the design and construction of an opera house politically unclear? This should also start from the status of Sydney at that time. Sydney was just a noisy industrial city in 1950s, while Melbourne, another big city in Australia, was regarded as the center of modern civilization in China, with stronger economic strength, and successfully hosted the Olympic Games in 1956, with a higher international reputation. Although Cahill, then governor of New South Wales, said that the Opera House has nothing to do with politics and will not change in the future because of the election results, the Sydney Opera House was finally regarded as a key project in the competition between Sydney and Melbourne and became the focus of the game between political forces. 1in March, 959, the Sydney Opera House was started with a project budget of 7.2 million Australian dollars. It is expected to be completed in about three years, and the project will be supervised by Wu Zun and famous structural engineer Elap. At this time, the design of Sydney Opera House has not been finalized. Uzun's elliptical parabolic cement roof design in the initial competition was later proved to be impossible to build. He and the design and construction team spent thousands of hours on computer simulation and modification to transform the design into an executable hemispherical design. The special shape of the Sydney Opera House makes the construction extremely difficult, and the perfect and almost critical Wu Zun can't be flawed. So in just one year, the construction fund has increased to 9.8 million Australian dollars (nearly 40% more). Elap had provided uzun with many practical construction suggestions, but uzun ignored it because it could not reflect the beauty of design, so the two good friends gradually became estranged. In order to raise the rising construction funds of the Opera House, in addition to raising funds, the state government also issued lottery tickets for the Opera House. However, since 1963, the scheduled completion date has been postponed repeatedly. Because Cahill, who strongly supported the construction of the Opera House, died during his term of office, the criticism of Wu Zun also increased sharply. 1965, Robert Askin was elected governor of New South Wales, and the official attitude became tough, so everything was considered as soon as possible. At that time, Davis Hugh, the minister of public works appointed by Askin, began to question Wu Zun's plan execution and cost estimation ability in order to control the construction cost and complete it as soon as possible, and the relationship between them became increasingly tense. The dispute between Wu Zun and Hugh continued to deteriorate. At the beginning of 1966, the Ministry of Public Works decided to stop paying uzun and its design and construction team. Moreover, the NSW government also decided to impose a punitive tax on uzun, that is, uzun's previous remuneration must be taxed in Australia. In other words, uzun will be subject to double taxation in Australia and Denmark, which means that uzun will not only make no money on the Sydney Opera House project, but will also be on the verge of bankruptcy. 2. "You have forced me to leave my job." He left Australia and never came back. "You forced me to leave." In the letter 1966 to Hugh on February 28th, Wu Zun wrote. According to Shirley Corris, Wu Zun's secretary at that time, when Wu Zun dictated this letter to her, it was not like writing a resignation letter at all, but more like complaining. In his letter, uzun pointed out that the government's decision would force him to close his studio. Without government funding, he can't pay his employees' salaries ... "Many people advised Wu Zun not to send this letter, but the stubborn Wu Zun went his own way. The next day, all the newspapers announced that Wu Zun resigned. It is reported that after repeatedly considering the importance of the Sydney Opera House project to himself, Wu Zun once asked to be reinstated, but the latter flatly refused. At this point, the contradiction between Wu Zun and the NSW government is irreversible. 1966 uzun and his family left Australia and never came back. As far as the completion schedule of Sydney Opera House is concerned, the construction of the Opera House is divided into three stages: the first stage (1959- 1963) establishes the architectural foundation, the second stage (1963- 1967) establishes the hemispherical shell, and the third stage (/kloc-) As the design drawings of the third stage have been completed, the NSW government purchased 65,438+030 design drawings of the third stage from uzun and appointed another local construction team to take over the project. In order to complete the project as soon as possible, the new construction team revised Mr. Wu Songyuan's design several times. Later, some defects of the opera house, such as small space in the opera hall and poor music effect, were also related to the compromise in design and construction. 1973101On October 20th, Sydney Opera House was grandly opened and Queen Elizabeth II cut the ribbon herself. Uzun was invited but didn't go. In 2007, Sydney Opera House was listed as one of the most classic buildings in the 20th century by UNESCO. 3. "If you like an architect's work, you should give him the project to build, not give him a medal." The influence of Sydney Opera House on Australia and uzun is enormous, but they are totally different. It makes Sydney Bay a world-famous tourist spot and changes the image of Sydney and even Australia. However, uzun is branded as overspending and quitting halfway, which limits his chances of creating, accepting cases and bidding in the construction industry and costs him a heavy life. After leaving Australia, in the face of all the accusations, uzun kept silent about the unfair treatment he received without any excuse. Although Wu Zun said in his later years that he didn't hate Australia, "it was just an education, and I didn't hate anything in my life", his heart may not have really let go-1973, the Royal Australian Institute of Architecture awarded Wu Zun the architectural gold medal, and Wu Zun accepted the medal but didn't attend the award ceremony; Queensland, Australia invited Wu Zun to participate in the design of a local resort. Wu Zun sent two sons, Jane and Kim, who are also architects. 1998, Sydney awarded Wu Zun the "Key to the City" Medal of Freedom, but Wu Zun did not go to receive the award. At that time, the mayor of Sydney personally went to Copenhagen and gave him the "key to the city"; In 2003, Wu Zun was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Sydney, and his son Jane attended the award ceremony on his behalf. Uzun has never seen a great building designed by himself in his life. But his son Jane said that just because his father had never visited the Sydney Opera House did not mean that he had never experienced the building. "As its creator, he just needs to close his eyes and experience it," Jane said. In 2003, uzun won the Pritzker Award, the highest honor in architecture. The jury held that Wu Zun "designed a building ahead of his time and far ahead of the existing technology. He resisted unusual attacks and negative criticisms and designed a building that changed the image of the whole country".