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Sails, Octopuses and Telescopic Cranes: Paolo Stracchi and Luciano Cardellicchio

Sydney Opera House

For fifty years, the Sydney Opera House has inspired a prodigious hagiography of personalities and their legendary quarrels. Yet its operative construction decisions (especially those behind the sail-like roof) remain under-explored.

Drawing on recently surfaced documents and 5,000 Hornibrook shop drawings held by Museums of History NSW, Paolo Stracchi (University of Sydney) and Luciano Cardellicchio (University of NSW) reconstruct the exact procedures that made the sails possible (1963–67).

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