Fabulous Opera House

                                         Sydney's most Unique Building

     I  have seen a lot of historic and beautiful buildings, but I was intrigued with one of the most notable landmarks in the world---the Sydney Opera House, touring it both times when in Australia.

     Standing the height of a 22-story building  and facing the harbor, the sailed structure has quite a history. Enormous controversy and debate existed in 1959 with the inception of the idea for an opera house. The dazzling and dramatic design of Danish architect, Joern Utzon, won an international competition. The technology did not exist in the 1950s to build the sails that form the roof and walls, B U T

     Built in three stages, the original cost estimate was $7-million dollars with a projected construction time of four years. But as most often happens, the cost actually was $102-million and construction took 15 years!  A special lottery paid the additional bills and the opera house was completely paid for by mid-1970, just two years after opening.

     One day while peeling an orange Utzon  had the inspiration to construct the shells from rib sections forming the skeleton of the building,  then prefabricated and joined together with 217-miles of tension steel. In 1966 Utzon resigned from the project and a team of  Australian architects took over the project, completing stage two in about a year. The 1,056,000 white Swedish tiles covering the roof appear as a mosaic.

     The term Opera House is really a misnomer as it is actually a performing arts center housing 1000 rooms including the opera theater, concert hall, reception hall, drama theater, five rehearsal studios, four restaurants, six theater bars, many foyers and lounge areas, 60 dressing rooms, library, admin offices and extensive plant and machinery areas.

     The power supply, adequate for a city of 25,000, involves 400 miles of electrical cable run from 120 distribution boards. There are 12 miles of air conditioning duct. How would you like to trouble shoot those systems.

    It is truly a fantastic building and one that is recognized around the world.

MORE CHINES INFO

                                        Other Cities

   Chongqing is a mountainside city located at the confluence of the Yangtze and Jialing Rivers and was once known as Chungking. This city has been a bustling port and major center of commerce throughout China’s history. During WW II Chongqing was capitol of Nationalist China (1938-’45). Nicknames often applied to the city are Mountain City and River City.

      With a population of over 3 million, the mountainous and river metropolis is China’s 7^th largest city. The 300-year-old city has a significant historical, cultural, economic and political importance. It was here that Chiang Kai-shek and Chow En-Lai made the famous agreement to jointly fight the Japanese rather than each other during WWII. Japanese bombers did do a considerable amount of damage to the city.

      Today it is a city of contrasts. Undergoing a rapid transformation, it is quickly becoming a vibrant and modern city, a city with skyscraper fever. A city full of cars, but because of the very hilly terrain hardly a bike was seen, which was a big change from what we’d seen elsewhere in the country. The Three Gorges Dam will make Chongqing a major deep-water port.

     We were within easy walking distance of Xian’s Big Goose Pagoda, built in 648 AD. Earthquakes in 1487 and 1521 knocked off the top two stories of the pagoda so now it is only seven stories and 209-feet high. It has been restored, remodeled, and added to many times over the centuries. It was built to hide Buddhist scriptures brought from India to be translated into 1335 Chinese volumes!

     The courtyard is large and from the street very deceiving. The pagoda is Buddhist. Monks are basically vegetarian. In China there are 13,000 Buddhist temples, 30,000 Muslim mosques, 4000 Catholic churches, 12,000 Protestant churches and 1500 Taoist temples, which are usually built on mountain tops as they don’t like the human world. Xian's warriors are in a post noted below

    A visit to the Beijing Opera School was a delight. A local docent told us, “The government established the school in 1952. Prior to that, it was a private school. This best school in the country started out with a one story building. Now we are a high rise residential school with 3600 graduates. Children can come here at age 10 and stay for six years.”

     We worked our way through a small museum where there were many manikins dressed in ornate opera costumes. We visited several classrooms and were quite impressed with the students’ abilities that we observed. We learned that Chinese opera has four characters—young man, old man, woman, and clown.

    Our Yangtze river boat docked at Wanzhou, the gateway to Sichuan. It was an easy walk up 120 steps that were perfect for pacing and narrow in depth. After working our way though many hawkers we boarded a bus that took us first to the Acrobatic Theater. The show performed by children was excellent. They preformed some remarkable stunts. Some of them were so young and they performed such fantastic stunts!

     Because we were delayed leaving Tibet we were late arriving in Chongqing to board our river boat. Instead of taking the time to stop for dinner our guide phoned the ship and they had dinner waiting for us on arrival. We ate even before we made it to our staterooms. It had been a long day.

see post: Xian 11-10-11, and Hutong 5-2-10

MUNICH TRIVIA

                     MUNICH  (MUCHEN)

            Munich, with a population of 1.3 million, is a popular destination, so I’ll just relate a few tid bits of information you may not know. The capitol of Bavaria is in one of Germany’s sixteen states.

            Bavaria is the largest state in the Federated Republic of Germany, and is about the size of Montana. Located in the southeast part of the country it occupies about one-fifth of Germany’s acreage. Munich became the capitol of Bavaria in 13^th century. Prior to that Regensburg was the capitol.

             In 1810 Ludwig I married and threw a big party, and Octoberfest has been held in late September / early October ever since.

            Each year 110 million gallons of beer are brewed in Munich and 70-80% of it is consumed in the city. The drinking age is 16 for beer and wine, 18 for anything harder. Interestingly beer is considered liquid bread and is taxed as bread, not as alcohol.  We were told the Lowenbrau brewery’s cellars are under the street.

            BMW stands for Bavarian Motor Works. In 1916 they produced aircraft engines, in 1928 they added automobiles. A car  rolls off the  production line every 90 seconds---and only after it is ordered! Their home office is a three cylindrical building that is full of windows. The BMW tower at 950 feet high is visible from afar. It resembles the space needle, and a revolving restaurant is at 650 feet.

            The  Nymphenburg Baroque summer palace and home of previous kings  was the King’s gift to his wife in 1664 for delivering a son. The Wittelsbach dynasty ruled Bavaria for 738 years, until 1918. The Palace is a half-mile long and is symmetrical with equal buildings mirrored on each side. It took 150 years to finish the Palace. There are 500 acres of park in the back. When the family moved to Munich they hardly came alone considering they brought 500 horses and 1000 servants!

             A local docent told us, “The city has 50 museums and 70 theaters. The population has doubled since the end of the war, and 80% of the apartments are new. All the high rise buildings are in the suburbs because an ordinance prohibits any building taller than Our Lady Church. There are 210 churches in the city.”

The Opera House Pennies Built        

            Munich’s Opera House, built 200 years ago, was the largest at that time. Unfortunately it burned five years later, and  there was no money to replace it. So the people paid an extra penny for each beer and soon there was enough money to finance the present building. It seats 2000 people and employs 1000 people.  There  is a rule that no opera will be performed on any two successive days.

A Glockenspiel          

            I’ve seen many unique clocks in my travels, and someday I’ll gather them all for one post. So I was anxious to see the one in Munich. Just before lunch we hurried  to Maria Square where we joined a large crowd gathered to watch the 10-minute performance of the glockenspiel at noon. It is located in the tower of the new City Hall, which looks like a large Gothic church. It plays at 11:00 AM (we missed that one) and again at noon. The figures in the 1908 clock are about six feet tall. The bells ring first, then the figures move around in a circle. It is over when the rooster at the top flaps its wings and crows three times.