Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Opera House Tour



Yesterday we toured the famous Sydney Opera House. It is of course gorgeous and amazing from the outside, but touring the inside and learning its story makes it even more stunning.




Our tour guide was so-so...



The movies we watched about the design competition, the engineering feat of building the place, and the massive budget and schedule overruns were very interesting. (The design by a Danish architect was rejected, then pulled from the trash at the last minute; original cost and time estimate was $7 mil and 3 years, and ended up being $100 million and 16 years.)





Seeing the inside and understanding the construction, with each "sail" being made of a series of huge concrete "ribs" was really amazing.



Just in from the harbor on the Opera House peninsula is the Royal Botanic Garden; the view from the Opera House of the city skyscrapers framed by the trees of the huge garden is inspiring.

1 comment:

Linda said...

pretty pictures!