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75-650: The tower's construction commenced in 1961, and was completed in 1962. The tower was designed by Ove Arup and Partners and built by Christiani and Nielsen SA. Upon completion, the Brixton Tower was the tallest man-made structure in Africa in its time until it was overtaken by the Hillbrow Tower . It cost R300,000 to construct. The first transmission took place 22 December 1961. Presently, Sentech broadcasts 18 FM programmes and seven TV stations. Backup power to

150-541: A contemporary, distinctive edge and the company strives to revolutionise stadium architecture and performance. For instance, the Bird's Nest Stadium for the 2008 Olympics was complimented for its striking architectural appearance and the City of Manchester Stadium for the 2002 Commonwealth Games has stairless entry to the upper tiers through circular ramps outside the stadium. The most notable stadium projects led by Arup remain

225-456: A cost of £ 3,500,000 ($ 7 million) and completion date of 26 January 1963 ( Australia Day ). In reality, the project was completed ten years late and 1,357% over budget in real terms. In 1972, a construction worker was fired, leading the BLF -affiliated workers to demand his rehiring and a 25% wage increase. In response to this, all the workers were fired, and in revenge the workers broke into

300-709: A distance, they actually feature a subtle chevron pattern composed of 1,056,006 tiles in two colours: glossy white and matte cream. The tiles were manufactured by the Swedish company Höganäs AB which generally produced stoneware tiles for the paper-mill industry. Apart from the tile of the shells and the glass curtain walls of the foyer spaces, the building's exterior is largely clad with aggregate panels composed of pink granite quarried at Tarana . Significant interior surface treatments also include off-form concrete, Australian white birch plywood supplied from Wauchope in northern New South Wales, and brush box glulam . Of

375-475: A large payment for their troubles. Before the Sydney Opera House competition, Jørn Utzon had won seven of the 18 competitions he had entered but had never seen any of his designs built. Utzon's submitted concept for the Sydney Opera House was almost universally admired and considered groundbreaking. The Assessors Report of January 1957 stated: The drawings submitted for this scheme are simple to

450-653: A member of the Sydney Opera House Executive Committee, states: "Utzon came up with an idea of making all the shells of uniform curvature throughout in both directions." Peter Jones, the author of Ove Arup's biography, states that "the architect and his supporters alike claimed to recall the precise eureka moment ...; the engineers and some of their associates, with equal conviction, recall discussion in both central London and at Ove's house." He goes on to claim that "the existing evidence shows that Arup's canvassed several possibilities for

525-501: A modern expressionist design , with a series of large precast concrete "shells", each composed of sections of a sphere of 75.2 metres (246 ft 8.6 in) radius, forming the roofs of the structure, set on a monumental podium. The building covers 1.8 hectares (4.4 acres) of land and is 183 m (600 ft) long and 120 m (394 ft) wide at its widest point. It is supported on 588 concrete piers sunk as much as 25 m (82 ft) below sea level. The highest roof point

600-417: A philistine, he had been exposed before Parliament and dumped as Country Party leader for 19 years of falsely claiming a university degree. The Opera House gave Hughes a second chance. For him, as for Utzon, it was all about control; about the triumph of homegrown mediocrity over foreign genius. Differences ensued. One of the first was that Utzon believed the clients should receive information on all aspects of

675-651: A recording studio, retail shops, cafes, restaurants, bars including the Opera Bar and Opera Kitchen. Guided tours are available, including a frequent tour of the front-of-house spaces, and a daily backstage tour that takes visitors backstage to see areas normally reserved for performers and crew members. Planning began in the late 1940s when Eugene Goossens , the Director of the New South Wales State Conservatorium of Music , lobbied for

750-664: A seamless, 24-hour working cycle. However, it is more common for individual offices to specialise in working on an assigned subsection of a project rather than continuously exchanging. The BBC Television and RIBA documentary The Brits who Built the Modern World highlighted Arup's collaboration with architects and described Arup as "the engineering firm which Lord Norman Foster and his peers Lord Richard Rogers , Sir Nicholas Grimshaw , Sir Michael Hopkins and Sir Terry Farrell most frequently relied upon." The firm has published an annual sustainability report since 2008, and

825-493: A suitable venue for large theatrical productions. The normal venue for such productions, the Sydney Town Hall , was not considered large enough. By 1954 Goossens succeeded in gaining the support of New South Wales Premier Joseph Cahill , who called for designs for a dedicated opera house. It was also Goossens who insisted that Bennelong Point be the site: Cahill had wanted it to be on or near Wynyard Railway Station in

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900-695: Is 6 m (20 ft) wide and 2 m (6.6 ft) deep. The tower's full height is 237 m (778 ft), although some sources state that it has a lesser height of 234 m (768 ft). The Sentech Tower is situated in the suburb of Brixton , in Johannesburg , Gauteng , South Africa. Arup Group Limited Arup (officially Arup Group Limited ) is a British multinational professional services firm headquartered in London that provides design , engineering , architecture , planning , and advisory services across every aspect of

975-424: Is 67 metres above sea-level which is the same height as that of a 22-storey building. The roof is made of 2,194 pre-cast concrete sections, which weigh up to 15 tonnes each. Although the roof structures are commonly referred to as "shells" (as in this article), they are precast concrete panels supported by precast concrete ribs, not shells in a strictly structural sense. Though the shells appear uniformly white from

1050-467: Is also one of the first in the world to use araldite to glue the precast structural elements together and proved the concept for future use. It was also a first in mechanical engineering. Another Danish firm, Steensen Varming , was responsible for designing the new air-conditioning plant, the largest in Australia at the time, supplying over 600,000 cubic feet (17,000 m ) of air per minute, using

1125-413: Is an employee-owned business, with all staff owning a stake in the company and part of a global profit share. By 2013, Arup was operating 90 offices across 60 countries around the world. These offices are elaborately interconnected by shared internet -based collaborative working packages and communication systems that can, where required, enable a single project to be worked on by multiple offices across

1200-840: Is involved in several projects around the world aiming to cut greenhouse gas emissions, such as Dongtan Eco-City , which is planned to be zero waste, and the High Speed 2 Interchange Station, which is the first railway station in the world to achieve BREEAM 'outstanding certification. Arup also runs community engagement programmes comprising initiatives to combat homelessness, improve sanitation in disaster relief programmes, and disaster recovery after earthquakes. They also engage in partnerships with governments , NGOs , think tanks , and other advocacy groups. Arup had its own sports division, specialising in designing, consulting and structural engineering for sporting facilities such as stadia . Many of Arup's modern stadia are designed with

1275-613: The City of Manchester Stadium (2002), Allianz Arena (2005), Beijing National Stadium (2008), Donbass Arena (2009) and the Singapore Sports Hub (2014). The firm is consistently placed amongst top performers in Corporate and Social Responsibility rankings such as the ACCSR. Arup's multidisciplinary sports venue design and engineering scope on the Singapore Sports Hub won the 2013 World Architecture Festival Award in

1350-525: The Herald offered the view that: "It was not his [Utzon's] fault that a succession of Governments and the Opera House Trust should so signally have failed to impose any control or order on the project ... his concept was so daring that he himself could solve its problems only step by step ... his insistence on perfection led him to alter his design as he went along." The Sydney Opera House opened

1425-696: The Sydney Symphony Orchestra . As one of the most popular visitor attractions in Australia, the site is visited by more than eight million people annually, and approximately 350,000 visitors take a guided tour of the building each year. The building is managed by the Sydney Opera House Trust , an agency of the New South Wales State Government. On 28 June 1998 the Sydney Opera House became a UNESCO World Heritage Site , having been listed on

1500-691: The Sydney central business district and the Royal Botanic Gardens , and near to the Sydney Harbour Bridge . The building comprises multiple performance venues, which together host well over 1,500 performances annually, attended by more than 1.2 million people. Performances are presented by numerous performing artists, with many resident companies such as Opera Australia , the Sydney Theatre Company and

1575-512: The built environment . It employs about 17,000 people in over 90 offices across 35 countries, and has participated in projects in over 160 countries. Arup was established in 1946 by Sir Ove Arup as Ove N. Arup Consulting Engineers. Through its involvement in high-profile projects such as the Sydney Opera House , it became well known for undertaking complex and challenging projects. In 1970, Arup stepped down from actively leading

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1650-437: The premier , Joseph Cahill , authorised work to begin in 1958 with Utzon directing construction. The government's decision to build Utzon's design is often overshadowed by circumstances that followed, including cost and scheduling overruns as well as the architect's ultimate resignation. The building and its surrounds occupy the whole of Bennelong Point on Sydney Harbour , between Sydney Cove and Farm Cove , adjacent to

1725-821: The (now defunct) Register of the National Estate since 1980, the National Trust of Australia register since 1983, the City of Sydney Heritage Inventory since 2000, the New South Wales State Heritage Register since 2003, and the Australian National Heritage List since 2005. The Opera House was also a finalist in the New7Wonders of the World campaign list. The facility features

1800-955: The 2002 World Architecture Awards. Arup was awarded the Worldaware Award for Innovation for its Vawtex air system in Harare International School. Arup won the Gold Medal for Architecture at the National Eisteddfod of Wales of 1998 for their work on the Control Techniques Research and Development HQ, in Newtown, Powys . Arup Fire has won the Fire Safety Engineering Design award four times since its creation in 2001. The 2001 inaugural award

1875-654: The 2012 ITA AITES International Tunnelling Awards. Arup was awarded Infrastructure Architect of the Year at the 2020 Architect of the Year Awards. Arup was awarded Britains Most Admired Company 2021 by Management Today Barbara Lane, associate director with Arup, won the Royal Academy of Engineering Silver Medal in 2008 for her outstanding contribution to British engineering on design of structures for fire. Rogier van der Heide , at that time Director of Arup and

1950-409: The 2400 precast ribs and 4000 roof panels in an on-site factory and also developed the construction processes. The achievement of this solution avoided the need for expensive formwork construction by allowing the use of precast units and it also allowed the roof tiles to be prefabricated in sheets on the ground, instead of being stuck on individually at height. The tiles themselves were manufactured by

2025-546: The Future Projects, Leisure Category. The Casa da Música , Oporto , designed by Arup and Office for Metropolitan Architecture was nominated for the 2007 Stirling Prize . Arup's work with The Druk White Lotus School , Ladakh , won them Large Consultancy Firm of the Year 2003 at the British Consultants and Construction Bureau – International Expertise Awards, 2003 building on their triple win at

2100-568: The Ministry's criticism of the project's costs and time, along with their impression of Utzon's designs being impractical, this ultimately led to his resignation in 1966 (see below). The cost of the project so far, even in October 1966, was still only A$ 22.9 million, less than a quarter of the final $ 102 million cost. However, the projected costs for the design were at this stage much more significant. The second stage of construction

2175-486: The New South Wales government insisting contracts be put out to tender . Utzon was highly reluctant to respond to questions or criticism from the client's Sydney Opera House Executive Committee (SOHEC). However, he was greatly supported throughout by a member of the committee and one of the original competition judges, Harry Ingham Ashworth . Utzon was unwilling to compromise on some aspects of his designs that

2250-514: The Opera House project) all played a very significant part in the design development. As Peter Murray states in The Saga of the Sydney Opera House : ... the two men—and their teams—enjoyed a collaboration that was remarkable in its fruitfulness and, despite many traumas, was seen by most of those involved in the project as a high point of architect/engineer collaboration. The design of

2325-548: The Penguin Pool at London Zoo . According to the architectural author Ian Volner, Arup's vision when establishing the company came out of a combination of his wartime experiences and a progressive-minded philosophy broadly aligning with early modernism, was for the organisation to be a force for peace and social betterment in the postwar world. To this end, it would employ professionals of diverse disciplines that could work together to produce projects of greater quality than

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2400-493: The Sentech Tower is a vertical cantilever structure with a reinforced concrete shaft. On windy days, the tower has been known to lean up to 2 m (6.6 ft), as measured from its uppermost mast. In addition, the tower was built to withstand winds of 186 km/h (116 mph) and gusts of up to 200 km/h (120 mph). The tower's foundation is circular, possessing a diameter of 26 m (85 ft), and it

2475-497: The Swedish company Höganäs Keramik . It took three years of development to produce the effect Utzon wanted in what became known as the Sydney Tile, 120mm square. It is made from clay with a small percentage of crushed stone. Ove Arup and Partners' site engineer supervised the construction of the shells, which used an innovative adjustable steel-trussed "erection arch" (developed by Hornibrook's engineer Joe Bertony ) to support

2550-454: The aims of the firm and identified the principles of governance by which they might be achieved. These included quality of work, total architecture, humane organisation, straight and honorable dealings, social usefulness, and the reasonable prosperity of its members. Arup's philosophy work on influential projects was the subject of a dedicated retrospective at the V&;A Museum in 2016. Arup

2625-528: The building; stage II (1959–1963) consisted of building the upper podium; stage III (1963–1967) the construction of the outer shells, based upon the image of whales breaching the water; stage IV (1967–1973) interior design and construction. Stage I started on 2 March 1959 with the construction firm Civil & Civic , monitored by the engineers Ove Arup and Partners . The government had pushed for work to begin early, fearing that funding, or public opinion, might turn against them. But Utzon had still not completed

2700-429: The clients wanted to change. Utzon's ability was never in doubt, despite questions raised by Davis Hughes, who attempted to portray Utzon as an impractical dreamer. Ove Arup actually stated that Utzon was "probably the best of any I have come across in my long experience of working with architects" and: "The Opera House could become the world's foremost contemporary masterpiece if Utzon is given his head." In 1965 Utzon

2775-510: The company, setting out the principles which have continued to guide its operation. Arup's ownership is structured as a trust whose beneficiaries are its employees, past and present, who receive a share of its operating profit each year. The company was founded in London in 1946 as Ove N. Arup Consulting Engineers by Sir Ove Arup . Arup had established himself in the 1930s as an expert in reinforced concrete , known for projects such as

2850-452: The competition were: Professor Henry Ashworth ( University of Sydney ), Cobden Parkes ( New South Wales Government Architect ); Professor Leslie Martin (Professor of Architecture of Cambridge University and architect of Royal Festival Hall 1951) and American architect Eero Saarinen . The winner, announced in Sydney on 29 January 1957, was Danish architect Jørn Utzon . Utzon's design

2925-772: The completion of the final plans. After the 1965 election of the Liberal Party, with Robert Askin becoming Premier of New South Wales , the relationship of client, architect, engineers and contractors became increasingly tense. Askin had been a "vocal critic of the project prior to gaining office." His new Minister for Public Works, Davis Hughes , was even less sympathetic. Elizabeth Farrelly , an Australian architecture critic, wrote that: at an election night dinner party in Mosman, Hughes' daughter Sue Burgoyne boasted that her father would soon sack Utzon. Hughes had no interest in art, architecture or aesthetics. A fraud, as well as

3000-419: The construction site with a crowbar and brought their own toolboxes. Workers' control was applied to the site for five weeks as the construction workers worked 35 hours a week with improved morale, more efficient organization and fewer people skipping work. The workers agreed to end their work-in when management agreed to give them a 25% wage increase, the right to elect their foremen, four weeks annual leave and

3075-449: The costs or work involved in design and construction. Tensions between the client and the design team grew further when an early start to construction was demanded despite an incomplete design. This resulted in a continuing series of delays and setbacks while various technical engineering issues were being refined. The building was unique, and the problems with the design issues and cost increases were exacerbated by commencement of work before

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3150-417: The design and construction through his practice, while the clients wanted a system (notably drawn in sketch form by Davis Hughes) where architect, contractors, and engineers each reported to the client directly and separately. This had great implications for procurement methods and cost control, with Utzon wishing to negotiate contracts with chosen suppliers (such as Ralph Symonds for the plywood interiors) and

3225-447: The design team found a solution to the problem: the shells all being created as sections from a sphere. This solution allows arches of varying length to be cast in a common mould, and a number of arch segments of common length to be placed adjacent to one another, to form a spherical section. With whom exactly this solution originated has been the subject of some controversy. It was originally credited to Utzon. Ove Arup's letter to Ashworth,

3300-478: The different roofs before completion. On 6 April 1962, it was estimated that the Opera House would be completed between August 1964 and March 1965. Stage III, the interiors, started with Utzon moving his entire office to Sydney in February 1963. However, there was a change of government in 1965, and the new Robert Askin government declared the project under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Public Works. Due to

3375-485: The final designs. Major structural issues still remained unresolved. By 23 January 1961, work was running 47 weeks behind, mainly because of unexpected difficulties (inclement weather, unexpected difficulty diverting stormwater, construction beginning before proper construction drawings had been prepared, changes of original contract documents). Work on the podium was finally completed in February 1963. The forced early start led to significant later problems, not least of which

3450-482: The firm GBQC Architects. The grand prize was 5,000 Australian pounds . Utzon visited Sydney in 1957 to help supervise the project. His office moved to Palm Beach , Sydney in February 1963. Utzon received the Pritzker Architecture Prize , architecture's highest honour, in 2003. The Pritzker Prize citation read: There is no doubt that the Sydney Opera House is his masterpiece. It is one of

3525-555: The firm's global leader of the lighting design business, received the Radiance Award, the world's most prestigious lighting design prize presented by the International Association of Lighting Designers Arup Fellow is a lifelong honorary title awarded to selected honorary individuals in the firm. It acknowledges the highest design and technical achievements of people, not only within the firm, but also in

3600-494: The foreshore of Sydney Harbour , it is widely regarded as one of the world's most famous and distinctive buildings and a masterpiece of 20th-century architecture. Designed by Danish architect Jørn Utzon and completed by an Australian architectural team headed by Peter Hall , the building was formally opened by Queen Elizabeth II on 20 October 1973, 16 years after Utzon's 1957 selection as winner of an international design competition. The Government of New South Wales , led by

3675-452: The geometry of the shells, from parabolas to ellipsoids and spheres." Yuzo Mikami, a member of the design team, presents an opposite view in his book on the project, Utzon's Sphere . It is unlikely that the truth will ever be categorically known, but there is a clear consensus that the design team worked very well indeed for the first part of the project and that Utzon, Arup, and Ronald Jenkins (partner of Ove Arup and Partners responsible for

3750-454: The great iconic buildings of the 20th century, an image of great beauty that has become known throughout the world – a symbol for not only a city but a whole country and continent. The Fort Macquarie Tram Depot , occupying the site at the time of these plans, was demolished in 1958 and construction began in March 1959. The Opera House was built in four stages: stage I (1957–1959) was planning out

3825-451: The industry as a whole. They are considered role models who possess world-class expertise who put theory into effective practice. The current fellows, as of April 2024, are: Companies under Arup Group Several staff have left to form other companies, often with significant parallels with Arup. Sydney Opera House The Sydney Opera House is a multi-venue performing arts centre in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Located on

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3900-530: The lack of collaboration caused his resignation and later described the situation as "Malice in Blunderland". In March 1966, Hughes offered him a subordinate role as "design architect" under a panel of executive architects, without any supervisory powers over the House's construction, but Utzon rejected this. Utzon left the country never to return. Following the resignation, there was great controversy about who

3975-475: The main hall and further stated that increasing the number of seats to 3,000 as specified in the brief would be disastrous for the acoustics. According to Peter Jones, the stage designer, Martin Carr, criticised the "shape, height and width of the stage, the physical facilities for artists, the location of the dressing rooms, the widths of doors and lifts, and the location of lighting switchboards." The Opera House

4050-476: The northwest of the central business district . An international design competition was launched by Cahill on 13 September 1955 and received 233 entries, representing architects from 32 countries. The criteria specified a large hall seating 3,000 and a small hall for 1,200 people, each to be designed for different uses, including full-scale operas, orchestral and choral concerts, mass meetings, lectures, ballet performances, and other presentations. The jury for

4125-521: The point of being diagrammatic. Nevertheless, as we have returned again and again to the study of these drawings, we are convinced that they present a concept of an Opera House which is capable of becoming one of the great buildings of the world. For the first stage, Utzon worked successfully with the rest of the design team and the client, but, as the project progressed, the Cahill government insisted on progressive revisions. They also did not fully appreciate

4200-538: The premier league of engineering consultancies. The Opera House was the first application of computer calculations to an engineering project, using the Ferranti Pegasus computer to generate models. During Arup's lifetime, the company would also work on high-profile projects such as the 'inside-out' Centre Pompidou with Rogers & Piano, and the HSBC headquarters with Norman Foster & Partners. 1970

4275-500: The roof was tested on scale models in wind tunnels at University of Southampton and later NPL to establish the wind-pressure distribution around the roof shape in very high winds, which helped in the design of the roof tiles and their fixtures. The immensely complex design and construction of the shells was completed by Hornibrook Group Pty Ltd , who were also responsible for construction in Stage III. Hornibrook manufactured

4350-408: The shells involved one of the earliest uses of computers in structural analysis , to understand the complex forces to which the shells would be subjected. The computer system was also used in the assembly of the arches. The pins in the arches were surveyed at the end of each day, and the information was entered into the computer so the next arch could be properly placed the following day. In mid-1961,

4425-629: The tower is 1 MW using two 500 kVA Volvo generators. Towards 2001, naming rights for the tower were sold to Sentech , the TV and radio signal distributor in South Africa owned by the South African Government. Up until 1982, an observation deck affording panoramic views of the city was open to the public, but was closed due to security fears. The tower viewing deck has not re-opened to the public since then. In architectural terms,

4500-750: The two larger spaces, the Concert Hall is in the western group of shells, the Joan Sutherland Theatre in the eastern group. The scale of the shells was chosen to reflect the internal height requirements, with low entrance spaces, rising over the seating areas up to the high stage towers. The smaller venues (the Drama Theatre, the Playhouse and the Studio) are within the podium, beneath the Concert Hall. A smaller group of shells set to

4575-422: The way for the immensely complex geometries of some modern architecture. The design was one of the first examples of the use of computer-aided design to design complex shapes. The design techniques developed by Utzon and Arup for the Sydney Opera House have been further developed and are now used for architecture, such as works of Gehry and blobitecture , as well as most reinforced concrete structures. The design

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4650-670: The western side of the Monumental Steps houses the Bennelong Restaurant. The podium is surrounded by substantial open public spaces, and the large stone-paved forecourt area with the adjacent monumental steps is regularly used as a performance space. The Sydney Opera House includes a number of performance venues: Other areas (for example the northern and western foyers) are also used for performances on an occasional basis. Venues are also used for conferences, ceremonies and social functions. The building also houses

4725-480: The year in 2008. Arup was awarded the 2010 Live Design Excellence Award for Theatre Design for the integrated theatre and acoustic team's design for the new Jerome Robbins Theatre, created for Mikhail Baryshnikov and The Wooster Group. The Evelyn Grace Academy, London designed by Zaha Hadid Architects and Arup won the RIBA Stirling Prize in 2011. Arup was named Tunnel Design Firm of the Year at

4800-483: Was a particularly transformative year for the firm; 24 years after founding the company, Arup opted to retire from actively leading the company. At the time, the firm (then Ove Arup & Partners ) was made up of several independent practices spread across the globe, so prior to his departure, Arup delivered his 'Key Speech' on 9 July in Winchester to all his partners from the various practices. The speech set out

4875-418: Was achievable by them working in isolation, a concept known as 'Total Design'. As the company grew, Arup spurned the common practice amongst its rivals of acquiring other companies; instead, it pursued natural growth, opening up new offices at locations where the potential for work had been identified. During 1963, together with the architect Philip Dowson , a new division of the company, Arup Associates,

4950-589: Was formally completed in 1973, having cost $ 102 million. H.R. "Sam" Hoare, the Hornibrook director in charge of the project, provided the following approximations in 1973: Stage I: podium Civil & Civic Pty Ltd approximately $ 5.5m. Stage II: roof shells M.R. Hornibrook (NSW) Pty Ltd approximately $ 12.5m. Stage III: completion The Hornibrook Group $ 56.5m. Separate contracts: stage equipment, stage lighting and organ $ 9.0m. Fees and other costs: $ 16.5m. The original cost and scheduling estimates in 1957 projected

5025-452: Was formed. Within 25 years of its establishment, the firm had become well known for its design work for the built environment , acquiring a reputation for its competence at undertaking projects that were structurally and/or logistically complex. Arup himself worked on multiple projects during the firm's early years, including the Sydney Opera House , where he was lead engineer, and which author Peter Jones credited with launching Arup into

5100-487: Was in the right and who was in the wrong. The Sydney Morning Herald initially opined: "No architect in the world has enjoyed greater freedom than Mr Utzon. Few clients have been more patient or more generous than the people and the Government of NSW. One would not like history to record that this partnership was brought to an end by a fit of temper on the one side or by a fit of meanness on the other." On 17 March 1966,

5175-428: Was no repetition in any of the roof forms, the construction of precast concrete for each individual section would possibly have been even more expensive. From 1957 to 1963, the design team went through at least 12 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

5250-437: Was owed more than $ 100,000 in fees. Hughes then withheld funding so that Utzon could not even pay his own staff. The government minutes record that following several threats of resignation, Utzon finally stated to Davis Hughes: "If you don't do it, I resign." Hughes replied: "I accept your resignation. Thank you very much. Goodbye." Utzon left the project on 28 February 1966. He said that Hughes's refusal to pay him any fees and

5325-504: Was progressing toward completion when Utzon resigned. His position was principally taken over by Peter Hall , who became largely responsible for the interior design. Other persons appointed that same year to replace Utzon were E. H. Farmer as government architect, D. S. Littlemore and Lionel Todd. Following Utzon's resignation, the acoustic advisor, Lothar Cremer, confirmed to the Sydney Opera House Executive Committee (SOHEC) that Utzon's original acoustic design allowed for only 2,000 seats in

5400-620: Was selected by Finnish-American architect Eero Saarinen from a final cut of 30 rejects. The runner-up was a Philadelphia -based team assembled by Robert Geddes and George Qualls, both teaching at the University of Pennsylvania School of Design . They brought together a band of Penn faculty and friends from Philadelphia architectural offices, including Melvin Brecher, Warren Cunningham, Joseph Marzella, Walter Wiseman, and Leon Loschetter. Geddes, Brecher, Qualls, and Cunningham went on to found

5475-525: Was that the podium columns were not strong enough to support the roof structure, and had to be re-built. The shells of the competition entry were originally of undefined geometry, but, early in the design process, the "shells" were perceived as a series of parabolas supported by precast concrete ribs. However, engineers Ove Arup and Partners were unable to find an acceptable solution to constructing them. The formwork for using in-situ concrete would have been prohibitively expensive, and, because there

5550-668: Was won for Arup's contribution to the Eden Project in Cornwall, UK, the world's largest greenhouse. In 2004, the design for London's City Hall was appointed joint winner. In 2005, the Temple Mills Eurostar Depot won. The 2006 winning entry was for Amethyst House, a nine-storey building with an atrium from the ground to the top, in Manchester , UK. Arup was Royal Town Planning Institute Consultancy of

5625-501: Was working closely with Ralph Symonds , a manufacturer of plywood based in Sydney and highly regarded by many, despite an Arup engineer warning that Ralph Symonds's "knowledge of the design stresses of plywood was extremely sketchy" and that the technical advice was "elementary to say the least and completely useless for our purposes." Australian architecture critic Elizabeth Farrelly has referred to Ove Arup's project engineer Michael Lewis as having "other agendas". By February 1966, Utzon

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