Read the text about the Sydney Opera House. Put the following events (A-K) into the order in which they took place. There is one extra event that you should not use. Write your answers in the spaces provided. The first one (0) has been done for you.
A World-famous Building
The Sydney Opera House has become one of the most famous buildings in the world. However, few people know much of its history. Before the Opera House opened, Sydney-siders listened to concerts and occasionally opera at the Sydney Town Hall, a grand old Victorian building on George Street not far from the Central Railway Station.
The idea for the opera house came from the NSW Government. They wanted an impressive and elegant building as a place for the performance of opera and symphony concerts. They set up an international design competition with a group of independent judges. The government set out some broad guidelines and invited architects from all over the world to submit their plans and ideas. The competition was won by Jørn Utzon, a young Danish architect.
Utzon’s design was innovative and dramatic but it required expensive construction materials and special construction techniques. The outer shell structure took eight years to complete and the development of the special ceramic tiles for the shells took over three years. During construction the design plans needed to be changed a number of times as the construction of the shells was a very difficult task.
Primarily because of these changes, costs kept increasing. In addition, neither Utzon nor his colleagues were able to estimate accurately the actual cost of such a unique building – almost everything about it was new and untested. People in Australia were very critical of the ever-rising cost of the project and many demonstrated in the streets of Sydney and other towns in New South Wales. Their dissatisfaction eventually led to the government losing an election to the opposition whose main election strategy was to discredit the government for their “lack of foresight” and wastefulness in building such a strange and eccentric building.
After the government lost the election, Utzon was forced to resign as head of the architect team overseeing construction and his job was taken over by a team of Australian architects who together completed the glass walls and interiors including adding three previously unplanned venues underneath the Concert Hall on the western side.
It took more than ten years to complete the initial construction and Queen Elizabeth II was invited to formally open the Opera House. After the formal opening new additions were made to the land approach and forecourt by NSW Government architects and engineers.
Not everyone was happy with the work of the relevant government departments so Jørn Utzon was invited back not only to continue work on the building but also to develop design principles that would be used to guide all future changes to the building and its surroundings. The people of New South Wales wanted to make sure that future additions or changes to the Opera House would reflect his original vision.
After his return, one of Utzon’s first projects was to modify the Reception Hall in which he hung a wall-length tapestry of his own design. This was the only interior part of the Opera House that he designed and it was named the Utzon Room in his honour.
Later, he modified the outside of the building by adding a new colonnade along the western side and replaced the original solid wall with nine large glass openings which allowed splendid views of Sydney Harbour. More changes were made to the interior of the building according to Utzon’s specifications and public lifts and escalators were installed