This is the Opera House in Sydney, Australia; I really like the design of the building because it’s unusual. It’s made of concrete, and pre-formed concrete panels for the roof. The designer is Jorn Utzon, a Danish architect. I thought it was interesting that his design was used because he won a competition! It was a competition open to anyone for a suitable design for an opera house launched in September 1955. All designs were required to meet certain criteria including 2 halls, one to seat 3000 people and the other for 1200 people, and each must be designed for different uses including operas, orchestral choral concerts, ballets, lectures, and other presentation purposes. There were a total of 233 entries from 32 countries.
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FYI, this building's roof design is so top-heavy, one of the enigineers actually said they never would have bothered if they'd realized how difficult it would be. It took five years just to work out the principles, and they'd only intended to spend 6 years building it! It ended up costing 14 times as much as they thought.
paraphrased from Bill Bryson's In a Sunburned Country
I think it's pretty amazing that they were able to bring this dream to life, and now they have one of the most recognizable structures in the world for their efforts.
It's beautiful... doesn't look like it hold up over time, but obviously it has.
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