And here we reach the point where I had used the last of my memory card, dammit, so there are no further shots beyond this one. I certainly won't make THAT mistake again. I did in fact have additional memory cards but they were in my camera bag which, for reasons of weight, could not come with us, and I had forgotten to transfer them to my pockets before takeoff.
This is of course one of the jewels of Sydney Harbour, the Sydney Opera House. It sits on Bennelong Point which was not, at the time of European settlement, a point. It was a tidal island, which was separated from the mainland at high tide. In the 1790s an Aboriginal named Bennelong who liaised between the white settlers and the aboriginals was given a brick hut here, which is where the name came from.
In the late 1810s rocks were excavated from the site and used to form a permanent land bridge, making it truly a point. The rocks were also used to create some fortifications which were called Fort Macquarie after the Governor of the time. That lasted until 1901, when it was torn down and replaced by a tram depot. That in turn was demolished in the 1950s to prepare for the construction of the Opera House.
The project dates back to the 1940s when the then director of the New South Wales State Conservatorium of Music, Eugene Goossens, lobbied for a venue for large performances. By 1954 Goossens had persuaded the then-premier Joseph Cahill, who initiated a design competition which ran from 1955 to 1957. They differed on one point; Goossens wanted it on Bennelong Point while Cahill wanted it in the CBD. Clearly Goossens was in the right here, though he didn't get to see the finished creation. Long story short, he got involved with a self-proclaimed witch who was heavily into kinky sex and the occult, resulting in him being charged with pornographic offences, and having to resign and return to England where he died 5 years later. This was not the last controversy connected with the project.
The competition was won by Danish architect Jørn Utzon (1918-2008) in 1957. In 1958 the tram sheds were demolished, and construction began the following year. One problem was that Utzon had yet to finalise the designs, since there had not been a building like this before and there were structural engineering issues to solve. This wasn't entirely his fault; he was pushed to start construction lest the electorate (which was predominantly non-opera attending, and unlikely to see themselves going to the building) turned on the government for extravagance. So... in terms of short sighted planning, some things don't change then. By the start of 1961 the project was almost a year behind schedule, not helped by rain. So... rain in Sydney? Some things don't change, then.
In 1965 a new government was elected, one which had made political mileage out of the challenges of constructing the building. Of course, you can't then say "Oh well, the project is ticking along nicely!" Nope, you need goats, ideally of the scape variety. And thus, Utzon resigned in 1966.
There were still controversies over the materials used, the acoustics, the capacities supported in the theatres...this description would be a metre long if I described them all. However the construction was eventually completed, and the building was opened by Queen Elizabeth II on 20 October 1973.
Utzon was eventually recalled as a consultant during the refurbishments of the late 1990s. He was still alive when this shot was taken but would die a bit over 2 years later, at the age of 90, in November of 2008. He left in his wake one of the most recognisable buildings in the world, and one that is very much a part of Sydney, from both the air and the ground.
