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44
Sydney and one of the worlds most famous
symbols of Australia, as said by Australian
Prime Minister Kevin RUDD
1
.
The advertsing impact of the Sydney
Opera House resembles in many aspects to the
one that has had the Guggenheim museum of
Bilbao conceived by Frank GEHRY awarded in
1989, which also has great symbolic power and
generated a real rush to the iconic architecture
around the world in what has been called the
Bilbao efect.
Tadao Ando, awarded in 1995 is the
only one to be autodidact he stands out from
other architects with his exceptonal originality
and formal purity. He is one of the iconic fgures
of Japanese minimalism with its specifcites
that he expresses with consciousness and
objectvity in relaton with his own culture. Yann
NUSSAUME said in describing an interview
with Tadao Ando: His philosophy is clear, to
understand the essence of a building, one must
know the society in which it was built. For
TADAO Ando, postmodernism is absorbed by
formal consideratons and diverted from deep
consideratons
2
.
Among various social responsibilites of
architects, the most important is, in my opinion,
to refect the culture, ie to use the architecture
to show that each country has its own culture
3
.
Rem KOOLHAAS, awarded in 2000, is
perhaps one of the few architects who have
theorized about the relatonship between man
and the city, despite his statstcal and ratonal
approach. KOOLHAAS has, moreover, many
disciples among the internatonally acclaimed
architects such as MVRDV group and the Iraqi-
Britsh architect Zaha HADID who was the frst
woman to receive the prize in 2004. She was
formed in London, her work focusing on ultra-
formal architecture, with work on lines, cracks
and bends, is like many others, the expression of
1
Kevin RUDD, quoted in : Jrn UTZON, Wikipedia.
Translated into english by us.
htp://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%B8rn_Utzon
2
NUSSAUME, Yann. Tadao ANDO et la queston du
milieu . Ed. le Moniteur, 1999, Paris. Translated into
english by us.
3
Tadao ANDO, quoted in : Yann NUSSAUME. Op.cit. p.152.
Translated into english by us.
an internatonal architecture, acculturated and
globalizing.
Jean NOUVEL, awarded in 2008, is
one of those who advocate more relatonship
between architecture and culture, but most of
his achievements are stll expressing a fashy
formal architectural spirit .
Startng in 2009, the climate of the global
economic crisis and resultng world changes str
up refectons about the role that should play
architects in this conjuncture. The PRITZKER
Prize starts to encourage contextualized
architecture, as opposed to extravagant formal
experiences of previous winners. In 2009 the
prize was awarded to Peter ZUMTHOR the
following year the duo Kazuyo SEJIMA and Ryue
NISHIZAWA, and in 2011 Souto De MOURA, all
three minimalist and contextualist architects .
45
Fig 25 Zaha HADID
Fig 26 Grand thatre de Rabat,
Morocco
Fig 27 : Jean NOUVEL
Fig 28 Torre Agbar, Barcelona. its
shape was very criticized
because of its great
resemblance to the Swiss
Re Building in London by
Norman Foster.
Fig 29 Tadao ANDO
Fig 30 Suntory Museum, Osaka
Japan. one of the most
expressive buildings of
ANDO.
Fig
46
II. Case Study:
Among the architects mentoned above, we chose to talk about three of them, who have rea-
lized three projects considered landmarks regarding our problematc, three cultural iconic projects that
atained the status of urban or natonal icon :
Sydney Opera House by Jrn UTZON, Australia.
The Guggenheim Museum by Frank Gehry in Bilbao, Spain.
The Jean Marie TJIBAOU cultural center by Renzo Piano in Noumea, New Caledonia.
Fig 31 : Jorn UTZON Fig 32 : Frank Gehry Fig 33 : Renzo Piano
Fig 34 : Sydney Opera
House
Fig 35 : Guggenheim museum Fig 36 : the Jean-Marie Tjibaou cultural
Center
47
1. UTZON and the Sydney Opera House
We discussed in the frst part about starchitects. This global elite which is called, normally in
exceptonal to conceive exceptonal iconic commands, and whose names and signatures are supposed
to bring renowned and mediatsaton to the projects. But in the case of the Sydney Opera House an
excepton in the rule occurred by designatng as the winner an unknown architect, Jrn UTZON, to build
what will become one of the most famous buildings of the twenteth century.
A unique architect :
Son of a naval architect and nephew
of a famous sculptor, Jrn Oberg UTZON was
born in April 9, 1918 in Copenhagen. Young, he
showed a talent for drawing and began working
with his father at the age of 18, before studying
architecture at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts
in Copenhagen, with teachers as Kay FISKER and
humanist Steen Eiler Rasmussen, both known
for their theoretcal writngs. Afer graduaton
in 1942, he moved with his family to Stockholm,
as Sweden was one of the few neutral countries
during World War II, before leaving for Finland
where he had the opportunity to work for a
few years with Alvar Aalto, one of his three
great spiritual masters, with Gunnar ASPLUND
Swedish architect internatonally renowned and
Frank Lloyd Wright, with whom he discovers
organicist theories, which will mark his sensibility
to natural forms.
Afer the war, he returned with his family
to Denmark, where he opened his own studio
and began traveling. At that tme, his world is
enriched by afnity and unusual interest for his
generatons architects: the architecture of Japan
and ancient China, its monuments and treates.
The ancient Mesoamerican Mexico, where he
discovered pre-Columbian architecture and its
monumental image that will inspire him later. In
the United States, he is interested in the several
facets of Wright and his American house, the
Guggenheim Museum in New York and artstc
protest movements like the Cobra group. In
1947, he worked for a few months in Morocco
where he experienced Islamic art which will have
a decisive infuence on his work. He uses this
culture of observaton for his early Scandinavian
projects, few but various at the tme, from
churchs to urban plans. His frst projects are
original and remarked.
With his own home in Hellebaek
he introduced the free plan in the Danish
domestc architecture. The two villages he built
then (in Helsingor in 1956 and Fredensborg,
1959), are intended to be an alternatve to
lotssements that proliferate around Danish
cites. By reinterpretng an old model - the pato
house - he comes with several types that he
distributes following the topography, UTZON
achieves a perfect balance between confictng
requirements: the private home and the sense
of community, aspiraton interior comfort and
the desire for shared public spaces, fexibility
of utlizaton and architectural coherence, the
afrmaton of human interventon and respect
for the site.
But his undisputed masterpiece is the
Opera House in Sydney that has become the
icon of the city and one of the worlds most
famous symbols of Australia, in the words of
Australian Prime Minister Kevin RUDD. Among
his accomplishments also included a church
in Bagsvaerd, a suburb of Copenhagen, two
houses on the island of Majorca and the colossal
Parliament of Kuwait in the early 1980s.
In 1985, his children Jan and Kim begin
to work with him. And since Jrn UTZON retired,
they continue the activity of the agency UTZON
Architects. They were, moreover, responsible
for monitoring the development and restoration
of the Sydney Opera House, in particular the
internal design. The opera was classified World
Heritage Site in 2006.
Like his meteoric career, the unclassifable
nature of his architecture may explain that
UTZON remained misunderstood. The radical
artst fed with traditon, the humanist and
48
utopian, who wanted to work beyond the
possible traversed through the landscape
of European post-modernism like a luminous
enigma.
UTZON receives in 2003 the Pritzker Prize
for his lifetme achievement. He died at the age
of 90 on November 29, 2008 in Copenhagen.
The Sydney Opera House
The Sydney Opera House is a prime
example of contemporary iconic building.
Indeed, it is considered one of the most famous
and most visited monuments of the twenteth
century. But paradoxically, it is also one of the
most overlooked. Its name evokes unparalleled
forms, hulls, sails, opalescent peaks in the
extraordinary landscape that is Sydney Harbor,
one of the most beautful in the world. It has
become the emblem of a city and country.
The project for an opera in Sydney was
born in the late 1940s. It is carried by Eugene
Goossens, director of the Conservatory of
Music of the State of New South Wales with the
support of the Prime Minister Joseph Cahill, who
commissioned a study.
Bennelong Point, a peninsula in the Bay
of Sydney, was chosen among 31 possible sites.
And it was in 1956, during the highly mediatzed
Melbourne Olympics that the competton was
launched for the constructon of an opera. 233
candidates representng 32 countries send their
project. The originality, or error made in the
competton, was that candidates werent asked
to draw a constructble project, but only a style
study. The judgment was therefore based on
purely formal criteria, the most remarkable and
most striking proposal would win.
In 1957, UTZON won the internatonal
competton for the new the Sydney Opera House.
a big surprise because, the thirty eight years old
architect, it is barely known. Indeed, he does
not ft in the profle of starchitects that normally
are assigned to such megaprojects, even if he
gained some fame in Denmark and Sweden by
winning several architectural consultatons and
urban planning, which did not result. But the
jury was categorical, they chose UTZON and his
project because given the design of the project,
we believe that this opera will become one of the
great architectural works of the world.
1
Architectural concept
Without visitng Sydney, UTZON gives
the landscape of the city and the competton
1
La dclaraton du jury Cit dans le site Australie-Aus-
tralie. Adresse internet : htp://www.australia-australie.
com/opera-de-sydney/
Fig 38 The Sydney morning herald, the frst and second prize
winning projects, it described the project Utzon as
controversial
Fig 37 Location of the city of Sydney, Australia
49
program an audacious response slicing with the
proposals of the other compettors. He wants to
build on the promontory of Bennelong, white
shells that covers like sails, two concert halls
contained in a monumental stone base, inspired
by the platorms of pre-Columbian architecture.
The concept of UTZON came in one hand from
the conditons of the contest and the special
context of the country and city that launched
it, and on the other hand from his personal
architectural experience.
Australia, the smallest contnent and
the largest island in the world, is the latest new
land discovered and colonized by Europeans. It
is described as the far end of the world because
of the distance that separates it from Europe
(20,000 km). The frst setlements were penal
colonies. Its indigenous populaton like in the
American contnent was partally murdered
and robbed before being excluded from the
politcal and administratve machinery. its
society is, therefore, exclusively composed of
the descendants of European setlers, but also
of immigrants from Asian origins. A young and
cosmopolitan society that lacked elements that
symbolize its unity natonally and internatonally.
At the tme of the establishment of the
Australian federaton, two cites were competng
to become capital, Sydney and Melbourne. The
issue was resolved by building from scratch
Canberra. But the two rival cites contnued to
challenge. When, Sydney Harbor Bridge was
built, the widest and highest arch bridge in the
world, Melbourne hosts the Olympic Games
in 1956. The same year Sydney launched the
contest of the Sydney Opera House .
In fact the contest was a competton
between ideas in which candidates were asked
to present concepts and not a constructble
project. A concept that should be bold and
formally innovatve in order to distnguish the
city of Sydney from Melbourne on the natonal
and internatonal level was asked. An iconic
project with an image outside the norm and
away from its social, formal and urban context.
The site itself expresses this query because it has
been chosen out of the city and at the same tme
visible from all its strategic angles. The project
was meant to be exposed. Therefore It had to be
a real work of art.
UTZON has not visited Sydney before
concepton. His approach has been, here
diferent from that adopted by Renzo Piano in
the TJIBAOU cultural center. But this fact may
be what worked in his favor. On an other hand,
Australian society is historically a globalized
Western society on the Anglo-Saxon model,
which in its social and demographic compositon
Fig 39 View of the bennelong point and Sydney Harbour before
the consrutction of the opera
Fig 40 Ground plane of the site
50
is very similar to the North American society,
especially that of the United States, a country
that the architect has visited . These are both
countries where the new dominant populaton
has no history or building traditons other than
what it brought with it from the European
contnent, and therefore could not ofer him a
source of formal or social inspiraton for a real
distnctveness.
But, the context was interestng to UTZON
because of its special situaton geographically and
topographically speaking, the tp of a peninsula
in the middle of Sydney Harbor, which is among
the largest and most beautful in the world and
assists to the passage of hundreds of boats per
day. Thing that sets everything that could be built
in it the heart of the urban landscape of the city
and at the same tme in the heart of the sea and
harbor, moreover, worth notng that Sydney has
played in the consttuton of Australia the same
role as that of New York for the United States.
The opera was, therefore, meant somehow to
become the monument of Sydney in the same
way as is the Statue of Liberty for New York.
UTZON also drew on the experience he gained
from his travels around the world, where he
studied the monumental architecture of other
cultures, including that of the pre-Columbian
architecture in Mexico, where he he has been
inspired for one of the elements of his concepton:
the platorm. For UTZON, the platorm is a
fascinatng architectural element. I was frst
fascinated by these platorms in a study trip to
Mexico in 1949, where I found several variatons
of the idea and the size of these elements. They
radiate a large force.
1
In additon to the context in which
occurred the design and the formal input from
the experience of the architect, the intenton
behind the project for the Opera is part of a
movement of return to the form, proper to
UTZON generaton. Young architects react
against the drying of the formal modernism of
their elders and bet on new technologies, here
the thin reinforced concrete shells, to embody
their claim for a larger plastc freedom and foster
the emergence of a new architecture.
Therefore UTZON has conceived a unique
and extraordinary sculptural building with
aesthetcs thoroughly studied. The architect
has even thought of the ffh facade, because
the opera was also to be seen from the top of
the Harbor Bridge. He was inspired by boat sails
that were calling in the bay, by the conditons
of competton, the unique locaton of the site
and has permeated his work with his personal
experience and the climate of rejecton against
the modern architecture that existed in his tme.
He wanted to recreate the concept of the opera
declaring on Australian television at the tme:
We will not need the name of opera house on
1
Jorn UTZON quoted in the site Australie-Australie. htp://
www.australia-australie.com/opera-de-sydney/
Fig 41 Panorama of Sydney Harbour, taken from the Harbour Bridge
51
a sign to know that this is an opera, but we will
recognize it as such as we recognize a church
1
.
The result was as described by himself instead
of a square shape, I made a sculpture, I wanted
this shape to be a living thing, that something
happen to you when you pass near, so you are
never tred of watching it moving with the clouds,
playing with the sun, the light ... . The ceramic
coatng refects this game with natural light that
changes the appearance of the building and
ofers multple optons for night lightng that
completely changes its appearance.
2
As we have said, the original concept
of UTZON allowed him to win the contest.
However, the architect and engineers are quickly
confronted with the reality: the impossibility
of building the Opera without changing the
project, because the technology that would
allow its constructon had not yet been
invented. To beter understand how the opera
was to be built, it must be separated into three
components corresponding to the three phases
of its constructon. In the frst place, there
is the famous platorm or Podium, which
corresponds to the foundatons. Then there are
the roofs and the white sails that have made
the reputaton of the building and have caused
its biggest constructon problems. Finally there
is the interior design. Foundaton constructon
began December 5, 1958 when the London
1
Entretent avec Jrn UTZON, source You tube.
2
Jorn UTZON, op cit.
agency engineering struggled to calculate the
geometry of the shells that were to be fled
despite the use of the frst computers. It is fnally
the architect who found the soluton in 1962;
he proposed that the shells should be all taken
from the same theoretcal sphere, which makes
their surfaces proportonal, and ratonalizes it
and allows economical producton. But, by the
tme we found the soluton, the platorm was
already completed and its structure could not
bear the hulls that became much heavier than
originally planned. Therefore the basement has
been blasted and the structure reconstructed
from scratch.
These technical complicatons have
resulted in a considerable delay and an
explosion in the inital budget, which led to the
deterioraton of relatons between the architect
and politcal high-ranking ofcials especially afer
the electon of Prime Minister Davis HUGHES. In
1966 UTZON resigned seven years before the
completon of the project, lef Australia, and
never returned. A team of three local architects
was commissioned to complete the project that
fnally didnt respect the interior design of the
architect .
The opera will be completed with 10
years of retard, October 20, 1973, 16 years afer
the start of constructon. It was inaugurated by
Queen Elizabeth II, UTZON did not atend the
ceremony, and he never saw his work completed.
His name does not appear on the plaque at the
52
entrance of the Opera. With a cost of 102 million
Australian dollars, it will have cost 14 tmes more
than the inital budget of 7 million Australian
dollars.
Completed, the Opera is 183 meters long
and 120 meters at its widest point. It has an area
of 1.8 hectare. It is supported by 580 concrete
pillars which penetrate up to 25 meters below
sea level, Its electrical needs are equal to those
of a city of 25 000 inhabitants. Electricity is
distributed by 645 kilometers of electrical cables.
The roof is composed of 1,056,006 white ceramic
tles, inspired to UTZON by bowls he marked in
Japan. The building is the frst to use silicone as
a structural element and large scale suspended
glass. The over 34 m high central bay window, is
suspended without intermediate support.
This story is told as a legend to 7 million
tourists who visit the opera each year. Making
it the most visited monument in the southern
hemisphere. With a capacity of 6000 spectators,
opera sells more than a million tckets and hosts
over two thousand shows a year. It is thus the
most actve theater in the world and a major
source of income and publicity for the city of
Sydney and Australia.
Recepton
The opera received such a favorable
recepton in Sydney and across Australia by the
government, and by Australians, that seven years
afer its inauguraton, it had already atained
the status of natonal symbol and icon, and
the government presented its candidacy to the
World Heritage List of Unesco, something that
was denied because the building was not old
enough. But in 2006, the building is listed in the
list of the organizaton described as a beautful
urban sculpture, [...] since its constructon this
building has a great infuence on the world of
architecture. It combines various innovatve
currents from the point of view of architectural
form and structural concepton .
1
From a certain point of view, the Sydney
Opera House is undoubtedly one of the most
successful, most famous and iconic world
1
Site ofciel de lorganisaton des natons unies pour
lducaton la science et la culture. Adresse internet :
htp://whc.unesco.org/fr/list/166.
landmark buildings. Its story worthy of a novel
amplifes its image and adds a romantc touch.
But its great success has other reasons.
One of these reasons is the urban context in
which it was built. In the ffies, the city of Sydney
was a prosperous city, but it clearly lacked iconic
elements. Indeed, apart from the Harbor Bridge,
no other building could claim to have enough
iconicity to compete with the iconic newcomer.
Therefore the opera, come to occupy an empty
seat for which it was specially designed, in a
poor and symbolically speaking climate.
The functon of the opera and its dynamics
are also part of these reasons because Opera
was built to meet the growing demand of the
audience that the old theater no longer met. This
demand is accentuated by the great dynamic
of the opera house, where over two thousand
shows are organized every year. Demand and
social functon is, therefore, a key element in the
reputaton acquired by the building.
Another reason is that by leaving Australia,
UTZON also lef the front of the internatonal
architectural scene. His parallel projects stayed
inbuilt: the strange bulbs designed for ASGER
Museum Jorn in Silkeborg, Denmark, the foatng
tablecloths for Zurich Theater; the modular
pavilions for his own residence in Sydney. As
argued by the Dane Bent Flyvbjerg in Harvard
Design Magazine: The real price of the project
of the Opera does not lie in its huge overruns.
The controversies that have accompanied these
excesses prevented defnitvely UTZON from
giving us other masterpieces. . The opera
is, therefore, the only work of this scale of the
architect who may be, if he had the acclaim that
had been given to similar talented architects,
would have other commands that would have
competed with the opera formal image. As
is the case, for example, of the Guggenheim
Museum in Bilbao by Frank Gehry, which refers
the inspiraton source for the majority of the
architects projects .
In 1999, UTZON 86 years old, agreed
to rework the common parts of the building
but from Denmark, it is his son and daughter,
architects in his ofce that will follow the work.
In 2003, he received the Pritzker Architecture
Prize. According to the jury Jrn UTZON created
53
Ground plane 1
st
Floor Plan
2
nd
Floor Plan
North facade
South facade
West facade
East facade
Axial section B-C Axial section A-C
Fig 42 Technical drawings of the Sydney Opera House
54
one of the greatest architectural icons of the
twentieth century, an image of great beauty
known worldwide. Besides this masterpiece,
he worked his whole life laboriously, brilliantly,
quietly and without a single false note.
Synthesis
The Sydney opera house is a singular
example. We are facing an architect whose
projects have indisputable historical and
traditonal reference, critcal toward the modern
architecture and the tabula rasa, and which,
moreover, is not reluctant to learn from the
architecture of other cultures and civilizatons,
which prove that he is an open minded architect,
would it be only from the formal point of view.
But in this project, he created a building that, at
the tme, could be described as an architectural
object even in the Western context, without
visitng the site and without any consideraton
of its social context. Therefore, the symbolism of
the project does certainly not exceed the formal
aspect. The iconicity of the opera is formally
powerful but incomplete in its other aspects
because essental identty dimension has been
neglected in its design.
This is primarily due to conditons of competton
which do not encourage a culturalist approach to
the project, but a formal and aesthetc approach.
It did not ask for simple building to occupy a
functon, the functon itself was only an excuse,
but rather a work of art, an exceptonal object to
show, a graphic symbol that serve as advertsing
for the city and the country. This project
was chosen for this purpose, a real outdoor
showroom very similar to the small island of the
Statue of Liberty in New York. The social context
of Sydney too, has to do with this acculturaton.
Australia consisted of a global cosmopolitan
young society, formed mostly of descendants of
Britsh and European setlers, who did not have
substantal or essental elements expressing
their natonal identty. Besides this mater of
identty was irrelevant and did not exceed the
formal aspect.
UTZON has thus created a building
inspired by the geographical site, by his personal
experience and even by architectural climate
prevailing at the tme, but not by the local social
context. This is, perhaps, because there wasnt
actually a distnct social context, and that the
sponsors have not given importance to identty
dimension in the contest conditons. This did not
prevent the building from being accepted by the
populaton, or its image to meet unparalleled
global success. It has become the architectural
symbol of Sydney and Australia and the
reference which inspired many starchitects who
build in the city as did Renzo Piano in Sydney
tour. The modern Western context made the
acceptance of this building possible but the
Opera house cannot, so far, be considered as the
representatve of an Australian distnct social
identty, if this distnctveness happened to exist
at that tme.
The elements that made the great success of
the Sydney Opera House cant be understood
individually. They reinforce each other, increasing
the power of each other. They can be classifed
chronologically as follows:
First, the large media campaign that accompanied
the launch of the competton and the progress
of the work, it has a great role in the insinuaton
of the building importance to the public.
Then the extravagant architectural concept of
the architect in complete ideological and formal
rupture with what was done untl then.
his strategic site for its visual accessibility and
beauty of its landscape.
His great functonal strength, which makes the
opera worlds most actve.
And fnally, the fact that the building tells a story
that strs the imaginaton, the circumstances
that prevented an artst to complete his greatest
masterpiece.
55
Fig 43 Sydney Opera House during the Sydney lights festival
56
2. Gehry and the Guggenheim Museum
Frank Gehry is considered in the West as one of the worlds most successful architects. His
unconventonal design approach has earned him great respect in the architectural world and a global
celebrity quite before his most famous project, the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, which has changed
the percepton of the role of architecture in the city, and led to the birth of a new phenomenon the
Bilbao efect .
An architect in the PICASSO way
Frank Owen GOLDBERG was born
February 28, 1929 in Toronto, Canada, in a Polish
family. His father worked in the constructon
materials trade and his mother was a music
lover. This relatonship feeds the sensitvity of
personality. Very young, he shows a heel for
drawing and sculpture. His family moved during
his adolescence in Ontario where his classmates
nicknamed him Fish. In 1954, he changed his
family name GOLDBERG to GEHRY.
He studied at the University of Southern California
and Harvard Graduate School of Design. Freshly
graduated from college, he meets painters and
sculptors and discovers European culture; which
he opposes to Californian architecture without
respect for the environment. Years later, he
summarize: I was a committed Liberal and I
loved art, and these two facts together made
me an architect.
1