“Sydney harbour bridge opera house” by Knödelbaum – Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.
There are many rather famous buildings around the world that are constructed at least partially with precast concrete. These buildings are well-known for being unique and iconic, so it’s clear that precast concrete can be very unique and iconic!
The building, completed in 1973, was designed by a Danish architect in the modern expressionist style. The most iconic pieces of the building, the large white “shells”, are made of precast concrete that are supported by precast concrete ribs. The shells are covered in tiles.
Especially considering the structure was built in the 1960s before precast concrete technology was more advanced and more versatile, the shells were not easy to construct. In fact, according to architectuul.com, the engineering and design teams spent 6 years attempting to find a workable solution for their ideas:
From 1957 to 1963, the design team went through at least twelve iterations of the form of the shells trying to find an economically acceptable form (including schemes with parabolas, circular ribs and ellipsoids) before a workable solution was completed. The design work on the shells involved one of the earliest uses of computers in structural analysis, in order to understand the complex forces to which the shells would be subjected. In mid-1961, the design team found a solution to the problem: the shells all being created as sections from a sphere. Source
The most recent work on the building was an addition that was completed in 2006, according to sydneyoperahouse.com. The building’s architect, Jørn Utzon, won the Pritzger Prize in 2003 for the project, which is international architecture’s highest honor. In June 2007, the building was inscribed onto the World Heritage List. According to the opera house’s website:
The expert evaluation report to the World Heritage Committee stated: “…it stands by itself as one of the indisputable masterpieces of human creativity, not only in the 20th century but in the history of humankind.” Source
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