RE: License (Business)

Stan,

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I have visited the Sydney Opera House and studied a little about it and its costs and functionality. I believe its cost was several times greater than  what an equally beautiful structure could have been built. I also have heard about leaks when it rains.

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The other building I mentioned: Adelaide Festival theatre. Was started after the Opera House, with construction completing before, and the theatre open for business. At the time was some complaint about coloured concrete block sculptures outside the festival theatre being an eyesore. The politics at the time were about SA having implemented a more practical solution than the Opera House. Even more so given when the Opera house was eventually finished, it wasn’t considered fit-for-function with its acoustics being all wrong . Today, the sculptures are still there at the festival theatre, but if didn’t know it was there, would miss the building: it blends into the landscape, and car parking is underground. But the Sydney Opera house is known to the world, the festival theatre isn’t. Well may be it is, given SA is the festival state, and Adelaide hosts many world: cultural, theatrical and musical events. Which raises the question about should the building have more attention than what goes on inside it? For example do Gehry’s  buildings draw attention away from the museum display and art work displayed inside?

 

The other building, more recent, is the Adelaide entertainment centre, a large empty box, in the midst of oceans of open car parking. The interior can be subdivided  to suit one or more venues of basically any kind. It may be practical, but it lacks style. The poor management of  producing the Sydney Opera House has basically set a precedent, and it seems such monumental buildings are avoided like the plague. Plus finding structural engineers who can help an architect achieve the dream is difficult, as is finding a skilled workforce to build the thing. Then there is the community approval process which stalls many projects in SA, so I guess architects also give up dreaming. The socio-cultural dimension thus very important: influences the style of buildings and the psyche of the designers.

 

 

Regards

Conrad Harrison

B.Tech (mfg & mech), MIIE, gradTIEAust

mailto:sch.tectonic@bigpond.com

Adelaide

South Australia