Sixty years ago, the iconic Sydney Opera House began to be built

Sydney / Prague - A giant sailing ship moored in the harbor, the spread wings of an exotic bird, or two turtles - all of this resembles the building of the Sydney Opera House, whose cornerstone was laid on March 2, 1959. The impressive structure, designed by Danish architect Jørn Utzon, was officially opened in October 1973 and became one of the most recognized symbols of Australia in the following decades. In 2007, it was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

With his revolutionary project, inspired by palm leaves and other motifs from nature and architectural history, Utzon succeeded among 233 proposals in the 1957 architectural competition. By then, he was already among the most famous architects on the planet, with a distinctive style combining monumentality with harmony. "They will be two buildings visibly suspended on shells like a piece of furniture," he declared in 1962. The most striking element of the building became the shells covered with light glazed and matte ceramic tiles.

However, the beauty of the visionary building consumed an extraordinary amount: the original budget of seven million escalated to 102 million Australian dollars. Due to disputes with the government, Utzon was ultimately dismissed from the project in 1966, which mainly affected the appearance of the interiors. Even so, in 2003 he received the Pritzker Prize for the Sydney Opera, a kind of equivalent to the Nobel Prize in architecture. "Utzon proved that in architecture, a beautiful and seemingly impossible goal can be achieved," stated the laudation.