Sydney Opera House

THEME: Sydney Opera House

“If a building becomes architecture, then it is art.”     Arne Jacobsen    

 Read, write and learn the following words:

harbour гавань

congested перевантажений

residential житловий

to look like виглядати як

fame слава                                                         

sail вітрило

immensely  надзвичайно

masterpiece шедевр

landmark архітектурна пам’ятка

Read and translate the text.

Sydney is Australia’s largest and oldest city and it is built around the harbour. Sydney wasn’t planned from the start, as many later Australian cities were. It has a tight, congested centre without wide boulevards. It is a city with the most energy and style of all Australian cities. In Sydney, the buildings are higher, the colours are brighter and the nightlife more exciting. North of the harbour is more residential, and the south is more industrial. The two shores are joined by the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

Sydney’s most famous building is the Opera House. Designed in the 1950s by a young Danish architect, Joern Utzon, it is supposed to look like sail in the wind.  Its unique use of a series of gleaming white sail-shaped shells as its roof structure makes it one of the most-photographed buildings in the world. In 1956 the state government sponsored an international competition for a design that was to include a building with two halls—one primarily for concerts and other large musical and dance productions and the other for dramatic presentations and smaller musical events.  In January 1957 the judging committee announced the winning entry, that of Danish architect Joern Utzon. His winning entry brought Utzon international fame. Construction, however, which began in 1959, had a variety of problems, many resulting from the innovative nature of the design.

The Opera House is Sydney’s best-known landmark. The Sydney Opera House is a modern expressionist design, with a series of large precast concrete "shells", each composed of sections of a sphere, forming the roofs of the structure, set on a monumental podium. The Sydney Opera House opened 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.

Although the roof structures of the Sydney Opera House are commonly referred to as "shells", they are in fact not shells in a strictly structural sense, but are instead precast concrete panels supported by precast concrete ribs.

Sydney Opera House was added to UNESCO's World Heritage List in 2007. Sydney Opera House is the symbol of modern Australia. It is widely regarded as one of the world's most famous and distinctive buildings and a masterpiece of 20th-century architecture.

Match the parts of the sentences.

1. Sydney’s most famous building is

2. The Opera House was designed by

3. In 1956 the state government sponsored

4. Sydney Opera House is

a)  Danish architect, Joern Utzon

b) the Opera House

c) the symbol of modern Australia

d) an international competition for a design

Match the words with  their synonyms.

1. immensely          a) well-known

2.  famous               b) extremely

3. form                    c) to build

4. modern               d) contemporary

5. to construct         e) application 

6. use                       f) shape