Lindsey Graham (4:49)
From Noiser and Airship, I'm Lindsey Graham and this is History. Daily History is made every day on this podcast. Every day we tell the true stories of the people and events that shaped our world. Today is October 20, 1973. The Sydney Opera House opens. It's a dreary Monday morning on March 2, 1959 on Bennelong Point in Sydney. Joseph Cahill, the state premier of New South Wales looks at his watch and tries to hide his impatience. It's been more than two years since Jan Utzon's design won the competition to build the Sydney Opera House. But construction has yet to begin and people are getting restless. Among them is Cahill. In just a few weeks, he's up for re election and he's eager to demonstrate progress on this major public project. But it's not just his political career that Cahill is thinking about. The 68 year old politician has recently been diagnosed with heart disease and he's been pondering how he'll be remembered after he's gone. He wants to be known as the man who brought Sydney a historic building. But the clock is ticking and Cahill has no idea how much time he has left. So today, even though Yon's team hasn't finished working through all of their engineering challenges, Cahill is breaking ground on the Opera House. It's important to him that the project is seen as a bipartisan effort. But Robert Askin, the leader from the opposition party, hasn't arrived and so the ceremony is being delayed. Cahill lets out a heavy sigh and hopes the dark clouds overhead don't turn into an all out downpour. Thankfully, Askin arrives before any rain starts to fall. Cahill beams with pride as messages of congratulations and support from around the world are read aloud. Then he takes his place at the podium to deliver his remarks. As the polished politician looks out at the crowd, Cahill projects confidence and optimism. The upcoming election may cause controversies and challenges, but Cahill promises that the Opera House will be free from drama. Cahill vows that the building will open on Australia Day, January 26, in 1963. Then Cahill bathes in the applause and flashes a triumphant smile. After his speech, Cahill's rival, Askin comes to the dais. He too commits to a spirit of cooperation and seconds Cahill's promise to bring Jan's vision to life speedily and without rancor. Once the speeches have concluded, Cahill and Jan work together to lay down a special plaque that the Danish architect designed for the occasion, signaling the first step of construction of the Opera House. Cahill is exhilarated when the Opera House is complete. In just a few years, Sydney will have the beautiful landmark it deserves and his legacy will be cemented. Cahill leans down and kisses the plaque. Then he rises up and lifts his hand to give a signal. A siren sounds and immediately workers spring into action. After months of anticipation, construction on the Opera House begins. But sadly, Cahill does not live to see his dream come. To life. Just seven months later, Cahill passes away after a long life in politics, with the opera house nowhere close to completion. About the same time, while construction on the building's foundation begins, Jan and his engineering partner, Ove Era, finds themselves in the midst of questions about the building's final design. And they struggle to come up with answers. The central challenge is how to build Jan's roofs. Jan's plan calls for a series of shell like roofs. That coal mine sails. The beautiful curves are what set his design apart and won him the competition. But translating Jan's original sketch into a working structure proves difficult. After months of trial and error using state of the art computer modeling technology, Jan and Olga are still stumped. It seems nearly impossible to find a structure for the roofs that will be strong enough, but also cheap to build, a key criterion of the New South Wales government. Then finally, in 1961, the team finds a solution. Instead of making the shape of each shell unrelated to the next, they realize they can treat each roof as a slice out of the same sphere. By giving the roofs a common geometry and reducing their irregularity, they're able to more easily do the math required for their construction and ensure that the roofs are structurally sound. It also allows the roof's parts to be cast from the same mold, drastically lowering costs. But Yon and Ove's solution creates a new problem. Their new roof design requires heavier supports than the ones that have already been built. The construction crew has no choice but to demolish the original supports. It's noisy, messy work that shakes the public's confidence in the project and sets the timeline back once again. By July 1963, it's six months after Joseph Cahill promised the opera house would be complete, and work is far from finished. The construction site is visible from every angle of Sydney harbor, and all of the city's residents can see no sign of walls or roofs. Public support for the Opera House and for Jan begins to crumble. But Jan's confidence in his design is unshakable. He pushes forward, untroubled by criticism or deadlines. Two years later, the building's roofs will finally be built. But there will be still lots of work to do, and New South Wales voters will grow increasingly impatient. That year, they will elect a new government that will vow to rein in the opera House's budget and its troublesome architect. Foreign.
