Happy Birthday, Sydney Opera House.
Congrats to the consulting engineers who made it stay up
John Walmsley’s Linktree.
I’ve been stuck at home with Covid and was going through my archive when I read that the iconic Sydney Opera House is celebrating its 50th birthday, wonderful! That those wings or shells have not fallen down, is thanks to the consulting engineers.
The Danish architect, Jørn Utzon, had won the competition without any serious input from structural engineers. So, although it looked good, no-one knew if it could be built and stay up. This is where Ove Arup and his firm came in. Their work was ground-breaking, envelope-stretching and successful. Without them, there would be no Opera House as we know it.
So, let’s celebrate the architects and engineers who make these things possible.
In 1975, I was a part-time lecturer at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London. I was surrounded by very bright students, including Zaha Hadid, and staff, who went on to achieve great things. I was not going to miss this opportunity so photographed life at the AA.
1. Sir Ove Arup, consulting engineer, whose team worked out how to build the wings/shells of the Sydney Opera House so they wouldn’t collapse in a storm.
2. Cedric price, with his trademark cigar.
3. Su Rogers, who, with Richard Rogers and Renzo Piano, build the Pompidou Centre in Paris.
4. Patrick Hodkinson, who built the Brunswick Centre in Bloomsbury, London.
5. Walter Segal, famous for designing self-build homes.
6. David Shalev, who built the Tate, St Ives in Cornwall.
#Architects #Architecture #SydneyOperaHouse #BrunswickCentre #TateStIves #SelfBuildHomes #CedricPrice #OveArup #PatrickHodkinson #WalterSegal #SuRogers #DavidShalev #JohnWalmsley #AASchoolOfArchitecture
John Walmsley’s Linktree.
John Walmsley is a member of the National Union of Journalists and the Society of Authors. His work, in one form or another, is at the National Portrait Gallery, Tate Britain Library, the National Art Library at the V&A, the V&A Museum of Childhood, Liverpool Museum, la Bibliothèque nationale de France and the University of California, San Diego, Library.
With a wide range of other artists, he has recently taken part in group exhibitions in Sydney, NYC, Los Angeles, Arizona, Texas, Tbilisi, Sao Paolo, London, Glasgow, Edinburgh, France and Bangkok.