The former French spy's calculations made it possible to build Sydney Opera House's spectacular sails AFP/File |
Sydney (AFP) - A former French spy hailed as a genius for an engineering feat that made building the Sydney Opera House possible has died aged 97, officials said Monday.
Joe Bertony
-- one of the original engineers of Australia's most recognisable building --
handwrote 30,000 separate equations to create the "erection arch" or
truss which held the concrete sails in place during construction.
"Bertony
was a remarkable man who will be remembered as the inventor of the Sydney Opera
House's mobile erection arch," Sydney Opera House chief executive Louise
Herron said in a statement.
"Those
calculations were checked by the only computer in Australia at the time with a
large enough capacity to do so. Not a single error was found," she said.
"Bertony
was a genius. Without him, the spectacular sails might never have become a
reality."
He died at
his home in Sydney on Sunday, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.
Born on the
Mediterranean island of Corsica, Bertony joined the French navy to study naval
engineering and was recruited as a spy, according to author Helen Pitt, who has
written a book about the Opera House.
He was
twice captured by the Germans during World War II and sent to concentration
camps, but escaped both times and was later awarded the Croix de Guerre by the
French government for his wartime actions, Pitt added.
The Opera
House, which opened in 1973, is billed as Australia's number-one tourist destination
and is the country's busiest performing arts centre.
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