Peter Rice - Sydney Opera house - Engineering, Engineers, Designers & Designing - Design & Technology On The Web support resource for students and teachers of Design & Technology at KS3, KS4, A-Level and beyond

2nd August 2008

Engineers & Engineering

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Peter Rice

1935 - 1992

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Peter Rice is recognised as one of the most creative and outstanding civil engineers of his generation. He believed in developing ideas through a collaborative approach; one where client, architect, fabricator and contractor worked closely together, exchanging ideas and looking at new ways of using every-day materials such as stone, glass and timber. He believed that people were central to buildings; that it was people who designed and built them and people who would populace them. He was born in Dundalk, Ireland in 1935 and studied engineering at Queens University in Belfast and Imperial College London.

Sydney Opera House

In 1956 he joined the engineering practice of Ove Arup and Partners; a company he was to stay with for 30 years. His first major project was working on the Sydney Opera House (Jørn Utzon). It was this project which gave him the experience of working on a large and complex project - a knowledge he would put to good use in his future career.

Rice worked closely on major projects with architects such as Norman Foster, Ian Ritchie, Kenzo Tange and Renzo Piano. Piano said of him, “Peter Rice is one of those engineers who has greatly contributed to architecture, reaffirming the deep creative inter-connection between humanism and science, between art and technology.” Among his numerous awards he was made Honorary Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects and in 1992 he was awarded the Royal Gold Medal for Architecture by the Royal Institute of British Architects for his engineering work.