Historical Aspect
The Sydney Opera House which is located in Australia is one of 20th century’s prominent and distinctive engineering masterpiece that was instantly made as Australia’s icon. The construction of this prominent opera house began in the year of 1959 and was successfully completed in 1973. This facility is located in Bennelong Point in Sydney Harbor, situated near Sydney Harbor Bridge. The amazing mind behind this marvelous design was Jorn Utzon, where his design was chosen as the winner from a competition and Ove Arup was the engineer in charge of the project. Apart from that, the 2 firms that were involved in this project are “Ove Arup and partners” the structural engineers and “M.R.Hornibrook”, “Civil & Civic” the main contractors. The Sydney Opera House is also known for its astonishing shimmery sails which are also known as “shells”. The construction of the shells were said to be one of the challenging tasks carried out in the project. The shells are precast concrete panels which are supported by pre cast concrete ribs. The highest sail is said to be nine metres high and 67 metres above sea level. Furthermore, the opera house is said to be 183 metres tall and almost 120 metres wide. It is also being supported by 580 concrete piers which are sunken into the sea for almost 25 metres below sea level. It is also said that the gas masks used during the world war were the inspiration for the glass…show more content… However, this competition should include the participation of engineers too. Moreover, Utzon had not finished his final design and the main structural issues had still been not settled when the project started to construct. Due to insufficient preparation for the project, the progress of the Sydney Opera House was greatly delayed especially when facing the problem of building the “shells”.
Human