There are only a few buildings that define an entire nation. The British Parliament building with its Big Ben clock tower is one. The Taj Mahal in India is another. The Sydney Opera House on the shores of Sydney Harbor in Australia is a third. Its soaring roofs are meant to evoke the sails of the ships that brought many of Australia’s original settlers to the Land Down Under.
Until World War II, Australia thought of itself as part of the British Empire. It was shocked when the British elected to leave the country largely undefended, demanding that Australian troops be sent to fight to preserve other parts of the empire. When the war ended, Australia was forced to confront the fact that it was not an English country at all but rather a part of Asia.
It was hungry to forge its own identity. Little did the people of Sydney suspect that a new opera house adjacent to the harbor would become the symbol of that new identity not only to the citizens of Australia but to the world. The story of the Sydney Opera House began in 1948 when the head of the Sydney Opera called for a new home for the city’s opera company. A request for proposed designs went out to architects around the world.
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