Video: Peter Rice, the man and his legacy

The engineer from Dundalk solved the problem of how to build the Sydney Opera House


Peter Rice, a structural engineer from Dundalk, Co Louth, is responsible for helping to construct some of the world's most famous buildings, including the Pompidou Centre and the Grand Arche at La Défense in Paris, and the Sydney Opera House. In an interview with this newspaper earlier this year, his long-time collaborator Richard Rogers said: "I see him as an artist, a poet, a sculptor engineer or engineer sculptor, a humanist, a Brunelleschi of recent times. He crossed boundaries, stimulated all our imaginations and was always optimistic."

A new film made by Arup, the engineering firm that Rice was a partner of, explores his life, career and legacy 21 years after he died. This film features interviews with many of the architects, designers and engineers he collaborated with, including Richard Rogers, Renzo Piano, Jack Zunz, Ian Ritchie, Martin Francis, Amanda Levete, Barbara Campbell-Lange, Michael Dowd, Andy Sedgwick, Tristram Carfrae, Bruce Danziger and Sophie Le Bourva.

Peter Rice, a structural engineer from Dundalk, Co Louth, is responsible for helping to construct some of the world’s most famous buildings, including the Pompidou Centre and the Grand Arche at La Défense in Paris, and the Sydney Opera House.