Sydney Opera House

Brian Eno's illumination of the Sydney Opera House was a wondrous act, images morphing into each other just slower than the human eye can follow, works of art beamed down from the Harbour Bridge. Brian arranged a carbon offset deal before these lights blazed, as part of which the neighbourhood highrises dimmed. Office workers asked for the illumination to start at 5 so they could admire it on their ways home.

We were whisked from the airport at 5am and driven straight to the building. Like the Taj Mahal, the Sydney Opera House defeats any attempt to anticipate it. It thrilled me with its beauty.

The unique element of this 'bid' byt the architect Uzon for the site was that two buildings, the somewhat bigger concert hall and the opera house, were placed side-by-side (rather than one behind the other) so both could share the full glory of the harbour setting. My favourite feature of buildings is how they open out to their environment: here you see something of just how well that works.