Souveniring the Sydney Opera House

Garduno Freeman, C

Souveniring the Sydney Opera House

Garduno Freeman, C

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Publisher:: Centre for Tourism and Cultural Change
Publication Type:: Conference Proceeding
Citation:: Things that Move: The Material Worlds of Tourism, 2007, pp. 1 - 13
Issue Date:: 2007-01

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Field	Value	Language
dc.contributor.author	Garduno Freeman, C	en_US
dc.contributor.editor	Terrapon, C	en_US
dc.contributor.editor	Schwiebacher, E	en_US
dc.date	2007-07-19	en_US
dc.date.issued	2007-01	en_US
dc.identifier.citation	Things that Move: The Material Worlds of Tourism, 2007, pp. 1 - 13	en_US
dc.identifier.isbn	978-0-9555017-6-0	en_US
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/10453/7422
dc.description.abstract	The Sydney Opera House attracts over four million visitors each year to experience its architecture, events and cultural narratives. This experience consciously engages tourists in a constructed spatial encounter, in which the tourist has the opportunity to experience the architecture of this canonical modernist building. This experience often culminates with the purchase of a souvenir, a seemingly innocuous act, but one that is highly revealing of the interrelation between the tourist's experience, the architecture and the souvenir. There has already been much scholarly work on the Sydney Opera House, discussing its architecture, the historical and political context of its commission and its symbolic meaning within the City of Sydney. Less attention however has been paid to the relationship between architecture, experience and memory, as embodied by the souvenir. The tea towels, snow domes, table lights and key rings which depict the Sydney Opera House are, as Celeste Olalquiaga states "static and idealized blueprint... of an experience." This raises debate over what exactly is souvenired; is it the building? The experience? Cultural cachet? What can be revealed about the architecture of the Sydney Opera House, through its souvenirs? Architecture, like souvenirs is party to questions of representation, abstraction and scale. By drawing upon the work of Stewart and Olalquiaga, on the experience of souvenirs, the essay takes an architectural position from which to discuss the way models as objects of architecture and souvenir miniatures are the material representations which commemorate and facilitate a dynamic and ephemeral experience of this building. In this way revealing souvenirs as more than markers of travel, but as Stewart asserts, containers of the cultural narratives, desires and myths, which surround such an iconic architectural destination.	en_US
dc.publisher	Centre for Tourism and Cultural Change	en_US
dc.relation.ispartof	Things that Move: The Material Worlds of Tourism	en_US
dc.title	Souveniring the Sydney Opera House	en_US
dc.type	Conference Proceeding
utslib.location	Leeds, UK	en_US
utslib.location.activity	Leeds, UK	en_US
utslib.for	1203 Design Practice and Management	en_US
dc.location.activity	Leeds, UK	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	Leeds, UK	en_US
pubs.start-date	2007-07-19	en_US

Abstract:

The Sydney Opera House attracts over four million visitors each year to experience its architecture, events and cultural narratives. This experience consciously engages tourists in a constructed spatial encounter, in which the tourist has the opportunity to experience the architecture of this canonical modernist building. This experience often culminates with the purchase of a souvenir, a seemingly innocuous act, but one that is highly revealing of the interrelation between the tourist's experience, the architecture and the souvenir. There has already been much scholarly work on the Sydney Opera House, discussing its architecture, the historical and political context of its commission and its symbolic meaning within the City of Sydney. Less attention however has been paid to the relationship between architecture, experience and memory, as embodied by the souvenir. The tea towels, snow domes, table lights and key rings which depict the Sydney Opera House are, as Celeste Olalquiaga states "static and idealized blueprint... of an experience." This raises debate over what exactly is souvenired; is it the building? The experience? Cultural cachet? What can be revealed about the architecture of the Sydney Opera House, through its souvenirs? Architecture, like souvenirs is party to questions of representation, abstraction and scale. By drawing upon the work of Stewart and Olalquiaga, on the experience of souvenirs, the essay takes an architectural position from which to discuss the way models as objects of architecture and souvenir miniatures are the material representations which commemorate and facilitate a dynamic and ephemeral experience of this building. In this way revealing souvenirs as more than markers of travel, but as Stewart asserts, containers of the cultural narratives, desires and myths, which surround such an iconic architectural destination.

Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item:

http://hdl.handle.net/10453/7422