This is the surprise of the week. This unusual vision of the Sydney Opera House by Tony Maniaty. He added this text!
AN EDIFICE OF POSSIBILITIES by Tony Maniaty
Shimmering under southern skies, the Sydney Opera House has reached middle age, turning 50 a year ago. Photographed literally millions of times, the SOH is to Sydney what the Eiffel Tower is to Paris – not only a global trademark and major tourist destination, but also an anchor-point for those fortunate enough to live there. As Paris is unthinkable without the Eiffel Tower, so too is Sydney without its Opera House.
Regarded by many architects as the greatest single structure of the 20th century, this World Heritage landmark – spectacularly sited, overlooking one of the world’s great natural harbours – has become an icon of contemporary Australia, a reflection too of the country’s ‘boom’ decades of dynamic economic and cultural advancement. The city of Sydney wanted a world-class opera theatre, but Australia as a nation required a bold statement of its coming of age.
So much post-war optimism, so many setbacks. When in 1957, Danish architect Jørn Utzon roughly sketched his winning idea for the building, he was embarking on a journey that would challenge and almost destroy him. Those magnificent sails: nobody, least of all Utzon, had any idea how they could be built, or how the one-million ceramic tiles covering them would stay in place. The cost blow-outs: originally budgeted at just $7 million dollars, the final bill came to over $100 million. And the time it would take: due for completion in 1963, the SOH finally opened its doors a decade later. By then, Utzon had been sacked from the project and sent home; he would never see his finished masterpiece.
How to capture this unique complexity, of forms and time and space? Most photographic interpretations focus on the SOH’s relationship to the harbour, to the waters that surround it – placing its soaring white sails against the ocean liners or commuter ferries constantly passing by, linking its maritime metaphors to a city synonymous with water. I’ve chosen instead to turn my Leica upward, to place the sails against the eternity of the sky, portraying the Sydney Opera House as less of a cultural venue than a cathedral, as Utzon himself wanted it to be: an edifice of inspiration, built at ‘the edge of the possible’, a vision drawn half-a-century ago on a single scrap of paper.
These images form a forthcoming book and exhibition, a homage to the city I love and to the endless possibilities of human creativity and ingenuity.
Tony Maniaty, photographer.
Tony Maniaty is an award-winning Greek-Australian author and photojournalist based in Paris and Sydney. His work spans a wide creative arena. He has been the European Correspondent for Australia’s SBS Television, Executive Producer of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s ‘7.30’ current affairs program, and Associate Professor of Creative Practice at the University of Technology, Sydney. His 2021 exhibition and photobook ‘Our Hearts Are Still Open’ captured life in Paris during the Covid pandemic. His 2023 exhibition, ‘The Planet of Possibilities’, explored aspects of beauty in a time of global crisis.
www.instagram.com/tonymaniaty/
www.studiotettix.com
