Today was a big day for the Sydney Opera House. A television news teaser just announced that the SOH has been named a World Heritage site. Opened in October 1973, it is the youngest to be included on the World Heritage list. It was considered for the list because it represents 'a masterpiece of human creative genius'. It is only the second Australian building to make the list, and seventeenth Australian site overall. Today's nominations bring the total up to 843 sites worldwide.This is big news for Australia. World Heritage status is a tourism boom, even for a site like the Opera House that had over four million visitors last year. It also provides protection for the SOH, including a 2.5km radius barrier around it protecting views to and from the site.
It's too bad this announcement didn't come a week earlier. My year 7 geography class just began an assessment task requiring research on a World Heritage site. Several of them thought they were going to do the Opera House, only to check the list and find out it wasn't there. They have since moved on to other sites.
So how many sites have you been to? With today's addition, I'm up to seven—only 836 more to go.
3 comments:
I've been to 0.
Chris, which ones did you count? I counted 10 and that doesn't even include the ones I could probably fudge like the wet tropics (Cairns and Cooktown).
I wonder if Frank Gehry is miffed about the masterpiece of human creative genius award.
4 and half of those are in Australia.
Dad
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