A Dish-rack Full of Crockery': Social Significance and the Sydney Opera House

Garduno Freeman, C

A Dish-rack Full of Crockery': Social Significance and the Sydney Opera House

Garduno Freeman, C

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Publisher:: Society of Architectural Historians Australia and New Zealand
Publication Type:: Conference Proceeding
Citation:: Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand (SAHANZ) Annual Conference, 2008, pp. 1 - 12
Issue Date:: 2008-01

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Field	Value	Language
dc.contributor.author	Garduno Freeman, C	en_US
dc.contributor.editor	Beynon, D	en_US
dc.contributor.editor	De Jong, U	en_US
dc.date	2008-07-03	en_US
dc.date.issued	2008-01	en_US
dc.identifier.citation	Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand (SAHANZ) Annual Conference, 2008, pp. 1 - 12	en_US
dc.identifier.isbn	978-0-9581925-4-5	en_US
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/10453/11226
dc.description.abstract	The sculptural roof forms of the Sydney Opera House regularly attract visual analogies in the public mind. Although they are mostly referred to as âsailsâ or âshellsâ they have also been described through humorous metaphors like âa dishrack full of crockeryâ. This particular visual pun, is a reference to a linocut by Eric Thake, produced in 1972, the year before the official opening of the Sydney Opera House. This analogy and its continued popularity to date evidences the social and cultural life of this building. Much of the scholarly on the Sydney Opera House investigates the architecture and the circumstances of its realisation, whilst its reception and social significance, has received little systematic attention. Through Thakeâs linocut, the paper discusses the current limitations in evaluating social significance in an Australian heritage context and proposes an alternative perspective to this problem through two scholars who bring âsubjective experienceâ to bear on the production of meaning. For Gillian Rose, visual artefacts become significant through their embodied experience, whilst Ann Game argues for the inclusion of such usually-excluded subjects like desire, memory, time and the body in the construction of meaning. By bringing these theories to bear on a specific example - Eric Thakeâs visual metaphor for the Sydney Opera House - the paper investigates a new approach to social significance.	en_US
dc.publisher	Society of Architectural Historians Australia and New Zealand	en_US
dc.relation.ispartof	Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand (SAHANZ) Annual Conference	en_US
dc.relation.ispartof	Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand Annual Conference	en_US
dc.title	A Dish-rack Full of Crockery': Social Significance and the Sydney Opera House	en_US
dc.type	Conference Proceeding
utslib.location	Geelong, Victoria	en_US
utslib.location.activity	Geelong, Victoria	en_US
utslib.for	1205 Urban and Regional Planning	en_US
utslib.for	1201 Architecture	en_US
dc.location.activity	Geelong, Victoria	en_US
pubs.embargo.period	Not known	en_US
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/Faculty of Design, Architecture and Building
utslib.copyright.status	closed_access
pubs.consider-herdc	true	en_US
pubs.place-of-publication	Geelong, Victoria	en_US
pubs.start-date	2008-07-03	en_US

Abstract:

The sculptural roof forms of the Sydney Opera House regularly attract visual analogies in the public mind. Although they are mostly referred to as âsailsâ or âshellsâ they have also been described through humorous metaphors like âa dishrack full of crockeryâ. This particular visual pun, is a reference to a linocut by Eric Thake, produced in 1972, the year before the official opening of the Sydney Opera House. This analogy and its continued popularity to date evidences the social and cultural life of this building. Much of the scholarly on the Sydney Opera House investigates the architecture and the circumstances of its realisation, whilst its reception and social significance, has received little systematic attention. Through Thakeâs linocut, the paper discusses the current limitations in evaluating social significance in an Australian heritage context and proposes an alternative perspective to this problem through two scholars who bring âsubjective experienceâ to bear on the production of meaning. For Gillian Rose, visual artefacts become significant through their embodied experience, whilst Ann Game argues for the inclusion of such usually-excluded subjects like desire, memory, time and the body in the construction of meaning. By bringing these theories to bear on a specific example - Eric Thakeâs visual metaphor for the Sydney Opera House - the paper investigates a new approach to social significance.

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http://hdl.handle.net/10453/11226