The History and Design of Sydney Opera House

The History and Design of the Sydney Opera House

The Sydney Opera House is a multi-venue performing arts centre in the Australian city of Sydney. It was conceived and largely built by Danish architect Jorn Utzon, finally opening in 1973 after a long gestation starting with his competition-winning design in 1957.

According to legend the Utzon design was rescued from a final cut of 30 "rejects" by the noted Finnish architect Eero Saarinen. The prize was £5,000. Utzon visited Sydney in 1957 to help supervise the project. His office moved to Sydney in February 1963. Formal construction of the Opera House began in March 1959. The project was built in three stages [3; p. 38].

Utzon received the Pritzker Prize, architecture's highest honour, in 2003. The Pritzker Prize citation stated: “There is no doubt that the Sydney Opera House is his masterpiece. It is one of the great iconic buildings of the 20th century, an image of great beauty that has become known throughout the world – a symbol for not only a city, but a whole country and continent.” [2; p. 271].

The Sydney Opera House is situated on Bennelong Point in Sydney Harbour, close to the Sydney Harbour Bridge and neighboured by the Royal Botanic Gardens.

The Sydney Opera House is a modern expressionist design, with a series of large precast concrete “shells”, each composed of sections of a sphere of 75.2 metres radius, forming the roofs of the structure, set on a monumental podium. The building covers 1.8 hectares of land and is 183 m long and 120 m wide at its widest point. It is supported on 588 concrete piers sunk as much as 25 m below sea level [3; p. 58].

Apart from the tile of the shells and the glass curtain walls of the foyer spaces, the building's exterior is largely clad with aggregate panels composed of pink granite quarried at Tarana. Significant interior surface treatments also include off-form concrete, Australian white birch plywood supplied from Wauchope in northern New South Wales, and brush box glulam [1; p. 103].

Planning for the Sydney Opera House began in the late 1940s, when Eugene Goossens, the Director of the NSW State Conservatorium of Music, lobbied for a suitable venue for large theatrical productions. The normal venue for such productions, the Sydney Town Hall, was not considered large enough. By 1954, Goossens succeeded in gaining the support of NSW Premier Joseph Cahill, who called for designs for a dedicated opera house. It was also Goossens who insisted that Bennelong Point be the site for the Opera House [2; p. 92]. Its significance is based on its unparalleled design and construction; its exceptional engineering achievements and technological innovation and its position as a world-famous icon of architecture

To sum up, the history of the Sydney Opera House is rich. It started in 1957 when it was a project won by Jorn Utzon and in 1973 when the opening of the building took place. The Sydney Opera House is a modern expressionist design, with a series of large concrete “shells”. The building's unusual exterior and interior impress all visitors to Sydney. The Sydney Opera House constitutes a masterpiece of the 20^th century architecture.