Sydney Opera House: Disappointment or Extraordinary Creation
Background:
Being one of the world’s most notorious structures and being perceived by many, the Sydney Opera House has become a representative image for Australia on a global level. It all started in the 1940s with Eugene Gossans who then was director of New South Wales State Conservatorium of Music, made arrangements for the Sydney opera house, and ran a campaign to establish a reasonable scene for showy creations. Considering Sydney town hall was not huge enough, in 1954 with the help of NSW Premier (Prime Minister) Joseph Cahill, Gossans collectively called for plans to develop a devoted drama house. He also additionally demanded Bennelong point to be the prime site for the opera house even though Joseph Cahill initially insisted it to be on or close to the northwest of the CBD at Wynyard Railway Station.
1956 was the year when Joseph Cahill reported challenges worldwide to bring in designs for the opera house which eventually should be structured with a couple of theatres, a huge walkway corridor to showcase artful shows, dance shows, and also different other art forms that could hold a capacity seating of up to 3500 individuals along with a lobby. In the response, they have received a huge response by gathering 234 plans from different players in the market which were submitted as per the plan. John Utzon in 1957 January was awarded as the victor after merely being rejected by 3 judges from the panel. He developed a plan considering the sails of a ship and gull wings, which is considered too complex by the members but eventually, he won the prize of 15K AUD.
In 1958, the then processing site port Macquarie tram depot was crushed and the place was occupied for so long time with approximate spending limited to 7 million AUD with an objective of executing the project by 1962 and to launch it grand by early 1963. However, the progress has not seen till 1959 and it ended up consuming 14 years and 102 million AUD though there were a lot of factors involved in it.
Analysis of success factors:
The panel was successful in raising up the capital for such a magnanimous project irrespective of the political conflicts between the panel members then. They are successful in bringing the plans for the project from all parts of the world. The panel ensured that all the parties involved and recognized the agreement according to the plan. The panel has made discussions with various industry leaders and experts to filter out the best design from the received plans. Analyzing the complexity and future scope they have opted for the best design among them. The Australian government has recorded and archived the entire process submitted by the panel which included success factors along with errors and ill practices to help upcoming ventures conducted by the government.
Analysis of Failure factors:
though there were a lot of complications that are analyzed primarily, the took a chance in building it. It was so tough to execute such a complex design back then. Even though everyone is motivated with the design, they had no idea about the amount of experience required to bring up such structures with large-scale configurations. There was no undertaking chief and expected Utzon could not provide all the requirements to complete it in time with respect to development. There is no measures to undertake assessments and goal lines and usage strategies were evolving continuously. Few sections of the drama house were designed and developed after the crush and re assembled once again later.
Ethical Considerations:
From the executive’s perspective, the Sydney opera house is considered as an absolute disappointment in terms of undertaking and development process. The project has consumed a huge amount of time and money arguably reaching to 10 years and a whopping hundred million dollars. There were a lot of political and executional factors that altered the result of the project. Initially, the objectives and the targets to the project should be characterized properly by the customer to drive the project with defined tasks. But the appropriate characterization of tasks is not done and the plan was on a verge of continuous change. The Australian government’s need of starting the project as soon as possible before fully developing the plan and characterizing the necessary actions along with the neglect ion in assigning a chief undertaking officer eventually led to a continuation of the project to ever. Expanding plans on a regular basis brought in a huge requirement of financials to the tasks. By no assigning an undertaking officer of the project manager to the project of that magnanimous creation was a major drawback. This resulted in a lack of accountable personnel there at the project who could responsibly take it forward in a crisis. This resulted in the discipline of the work structure. Everything was torn apart with new authorities coming with a set of changes every time. Trying to cope up with those changes also led to changes in the primary plan and things messed up eventually. Being the responsible person Utzon has handled the plans and objectives very well to the end without any temporary changes altered at the end finally got through the project.
Even though the Sydney opera house has been termed as a disappointment, it could be said that the Sydney opera house is an extraordinary creation that could bring a huge legacy to Sydney and also Australia. This structure now is considered as one of the beautiful and exotic monuments which dive a lot of tourist and local traffic every year contributing to the nation in terms of revenue and culture.
References:
- Blog.beyondsoftware.com. (2019). Sydney Opera House Failed Project - What Can You Learn?. [online] Available at: https://blog.beyondsoftware.com/learning-from-failed-projects-sydney-opera-house [Accessed 9 Dec. 2019].
- Eoi.es. (2019). The Sydney Opera House construction: A case of project management failure. [online] Available at: https://www.eoi.es/blogs/cristinagarcia-ochoa/2012/01/14/the-sidney-opera-house-construction-a-case-of-project-management-failure/ [Accessed 9 Dec. 2019].
- Centre, U. (2019). Sydney Opera House. [online] Whc.unesco.org. Available at: https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/166/ [Accessed 9 Dec. 2019].
- Ocw.mit.edu. (2019). [online] Available at: https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/civil-and-environmental-engineering/1-011-project-evaluation-spring-2011/projects/MIT1_011S11_proj_ex01.pdf [Accessed 9 Dec. 2019].
