Jorn Utzon's Opera House (1957-73) has a heroic quality; indeed, Utzon referred to it himself as a kind of "cathedral", analogous to a Gothic church in the way that light and movement play across its public spaces. Its complex shell-like roof structures echo gothic arches in section, but the building breaks with all precedent in its three-dimensional form. Finding a practical solution to the construction of these roofs occupied the architect and the engineer Ove Arup for many years, necessitating considerable experimentation with pre-cast concrete technology.
Disputes with his client led to Utzon's withdrawal from the project, and the Opera House looked for a time as if it might be a white elephant. At last, after a 16-year gestation, it opened in 1973 having already become an Australian national icon.
'Architecture In Detail' is a superbly photographed and technically informative series of monographs which embraces a broad spectrum of internationally renowned buildings, drawn predominantly from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Each sixty-page volume contains a lucid text by a respected author; a sequence of large-format, high-quality colour and black and white photographs; a comprehensive set of technical drawings and working details; and a complete bibliography and chronology, thus making these books the definitive work on the subject. They are essential purchases for enthusiasts, practitioners and students alike.
