(Picture from the internet - Architect Jorn Utzon's sketch of the Opera House)
In the late 1950s The NSW Goverment has launched a competition calling for architects to submit their designs for a new Opera House in Sydney, Australia.
Danish architect Jorn Utzon's scheme was chosen among the 200+ enntries but his design was way beyond the capabilities of engineering of the time. The structure of the shells, as we see today, could not be resolved until 2 years later, through immense hard work from the design team.
The team went through a dozen+ iterations of the form of the shells, from the initial parabolas to circular and ellipsoids, trying to find a structurally and economically viable solution.
There were different views as to who came up with the solution - the architect or the engineer.
Suppose it was the architect.
Utzon finally came up with the solution in 1961 where he changed the design of the shells to one based on complex sections of a sphere. His design, as he claims, was inspired by the simple act of peeling an orange: the 14 shells of the building, if combined, would form a perfect sphere."
(Picture from the internet - model of the Opera House designed by the architect Jorn Utzon)
(Picture from the internet - geometrical drawings showing the shells by the architect Jorn Utzon)
Impressed by how the mosques in Iran, in spite of sand and dust storms, sparkle and shine in the sunlight Utzon thought the Opera House shells should be clad in a similar way and thus having the same effect.
Through his collaboration with a Swedish tile manufacturer they came up with a solution and today the shells are covered in a subtle chevron pattern with 1,056,006 glossy white- and matte-cream-coloured ceramic tiles.
(Picture from the internet - closed up photo - Shells' ceramic tiles)
(Picture from the internet - closed up photo - Shells' ceramic tiles)
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