nomination by the Government of Australia - Sydney Opera House
nomination by the Government of Australia - Sydney Opera House
nomination by the Government of Australia - Sydney Opera House
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50 Part 3. Justifi cation for inscription<br />
3.42<br />
The Getty Center is an important cultural building that<br />
provides a remarkable visual focus for <strong>the</strong> surrounding<br />
city, in a similar way to <strong>the</strong> <strong>Sydney</strong> <strong>Opera</strong> <strong>House</strong>. It sits<br />
atop a hillside, merging landscape and architecture in<br />
what amounts to a small township that attempted to<br />
highlight nature and culture (The Getty web site 2005).<br />
Unlike <strong>the</strong> <strong>Sydney</strong> <strong>Opera</strong> <strong>House</strong>, which provides a<br />
grand celebratory public space for <strong>the</strong> people <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong><br />
city, <strong>the</strong> Getty Center remains separate and alo<strong>of</strong> from<br />
<strong>the</strong> city below.<br />
The <strong>Sydney</strong> <strong>Opera</strong> <strong>House</strong> stands alongside Renzo<br />
Piano and Richard Rogers’ Centre Georges Pompidou<br />
in Paris as an outstanding architectural form and a<br />
building that transformed <strong>the</strong> city in which it is located.<br />
The Centre Georges Pompidou defi ed traditional<br />
building forms while still demonstrating architectural<br />
integrity and social and urban design innovation.<br />
Discarding <strong>the</strong> rule books for its building type, <strong>the</strong><br />
radical external expression <strong>of</strong> structure, services and<br />
circulation make <strong>the</strong> Pompidou an engineering tour<br />
de force. The building returns to <strong>the</strong> modern ideal<br />
<strong>of</strong> ‘form follows function’ in <strong>the</strong> most literal manner,<br />
while <strong>the</strong> <strong>Sydney</strong> <strong>Opera</strong> <strong>House</strong> explores a new form<br />
<strong>of</strong> expression for its functions resulting in a great<br />
sculptural work. Both <strong>the</strong> <strong>Sydney</strong> <strong>Opera</strong> <strong>House</strong> and<br />
<strong>the</strong> Centre Georges Pompidou are ground breaking<br />
examples <strong>of</strong> 20th century architecture.<br />
Figure 3.42 Richard Rogers’ and Renzo Piano’s <strong>the</strong> Centre<br />
Georges Pompidou, Paris, 1974–1976<br />
3.C (ii) Masterpieces <strong>of</strong> structural engineering<br />
and technology that stretched <strong>the</strong> boundaries<br />
<strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> possible<br />
Tombesi has compared <strong>the</strong> <strong>Sydney</strong> <strong>Opera</strong> <strong>House</strong><br />
to a number <strong>of</strong> exceptional buildings dating from<br />
early times to <strong>the</strong> present that all share <strong>the</strong> same<br />
outstanding characteristics <strong>of</strong> architectural, engineering<br />
and construction innovation (Tombesi 2005). Two<br />
buildings with similar types <strong>of</strong> materials and structure<br />
that are particularly noteworthy include Pier Luigi Nervi’s<br />
Exhibition Buildings at Turin (Italy 1948–1949) and Eero<br />
Saarinen’s TWA Terminal Building at Kennedy Airport in<br />
New York (United States 1956–1962) (Tombesi 2005).<br />
These buildings, along with <strong>the</strong> <strong>Sydney</strong> <strong>Opera</strong> <strong>House</strong>,<br />
pushed <strong>the</strong> boundaries <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> reinforced shell typology<br />
to new limits, realising <strong>the</strong> vision <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> ‘fi rst generation’<br />
architects for reinforced concrete.<br />
Nervi’s Exhibition Buildings are internationally recognised<br />
as ‘masterpieces <strong>of</strong> logical structure and sculptural<br />
precision’ (Richards 1977: 228). Nervi stated that <strong>the</strong><br />
thin prefabricated concrete ro<strong>of</strong>s <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> buildings at Turin<br />
‘would have been impossible without a simultaneous<br />
invention <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> structural method’ (Joedicke 1989: vii).<br />
He set out to interpret and command <strong>the</strong> ‘mysterious<br />
laws <strong>of</strong> nature’ and <strong>the</strong>re<strong>by</strong> to express <strong>the</strong>ir ‘majestic<br />
eternity’ (Jencks 1973: 73). The work <strong>of</strong> Nervi is visually<br />
characterised <strong>by</strong> <strong>the</strong> tapering or modelling <strong>of</strong> concrete<br />
beams and columns to refl ect <strong>the</strong> complex structural<br />
forces within. Nervi’s designs were driven <strong>by</strong> structural<br />
integrity and his engineering combined clear logic with<br />
remarkable aes<strong>the</strong>tic sensitivity. Like Nervi, Utzon was