Sydney Opera House, Australia

The giant, glittering sails that rise above Sydney's Port Jackson represent what is probably the world’s best-known modern building. The sails rise from a base that is stepped toward the auditoriums with a simplified festivity, as in a Maya temple. The sculptural form of the Sydney Opera House responds to the special characteristics of the site. It brilliantly solves the problem that is regularly posed by opera houses and theatres by the large volume of the fly tower.

The built platform is a mark the human being makes on the landscape, an ancient way of distinguishing architecture from its surroundings. J0rn Utzon found the platform architectural motif in Mexico, where he experienced personally the space that spreads out from the high tops of the ancient temple platforms, the long perspectives that cannot be guessed at at ground level among the density of the surrounding rain forests...[+]