Stage two of the construction process was the roofing. Unexpected Difficultiesīy 1963, work on the podium was finally completed but the podium columns had to be re-built to better support the roof-structure. The first years were difficult and by mid-January 1961, construction work was already 47 weeks behind due to bad weather and further unexpected difficulties. Government pushed to start early, even though Utzon’s designs were not entirely complete. Named after an Australian aborigine, the site had most recently been used as a streetcar repair center, but after this form of local public transport lost out to motor traffic, it had degenerated into an industrial wasteland.The old building on site, the Fort Macquarie Tram Depot was demolished in 1958 and the first of three construction stages started in 1959. Bennelong Point and the Fort Macquarie Tram Depotīennelong Point, a peninsula in the harbor off the city on the other side of the harbor bridge completed in 1932, had been envisaged as the building site. The contest’s winner was the Danish architect Jørn Utzon, which was announced in 1957 and in the same year construction began. An international jury led by Eero Saarinen decided in favor of his design, even though, strictly speaking, it violated the competition rules because it was only a rough sketch. Also, each hall should be designed for a variety of uses including full-scale operas, concerts, meetings, lectures and ballet performances. The criteria for the opera house included seatings for 3000 in a large hall and a small hall for 1200 people. The international design competition was launched in September 1955 and received well over 200 entries from more than 30 countries. By 1954, the consortiums director Eugene Goossens started to receive support and designs were called in for the opera house. The venue for these kinds of productions was back then the Sydney Town Hall which was considered as not large enough. Planning for the opera house started in the 1940s when the director of the NSW State Conservatorium of Music, lobbied for a suitable venue for large theatrical productions. Designed by Danish architect Jørn Utzon in a modern expressionist design, it features a series of large precast concrete roof “shells”, each composed of sections of a sphere of 75.2 metres radius. It is identified as one of the 20th century’s most distinctive buildings. On October 20, 1973, the Sydney Opera House was formally opened by Queen Elizabeth II.
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