Opened by Queen Elizabeth 11 in 1973, from a design by designer Joern Utzon (who died in November
2008), it is one of the most recognised 20th century buildings in the world and the centre for performing
arts in Sydney.
Situated on Bennelong Point with parkland to its south and close to the enormous
Sydney Harbour Bridge, the building and its surroundings collectively form an iconic Australian image. To some
the spherical-sectioned shells remind them of the flotilla of sailboats commonly cruising there.
Tourists - mostly with little or no interest in opera - throng to the building in their thousands
every week purely to see it.
As well as many touring theatre, ballet, and musical productions the Opera House is the home of Opera
Australia, the Sydney Theatre Company and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. It is administered by the
Opera House Trust, under the New South Wales (NSW) Ministry of the Arts.
Physical Features
There are some 1000 rooms, including five theatres, five rehearsal studios, two
main halls, four restaurants, six bars and numerous souvenir shops.
The roofs of the House are constructed of 1,056,000 glazed white granite tiles, imported from
Sweden. Despite their self-cleaning nature, they are still subject to periodic maintenance and
replacement. The House interior is composed of pink granite mined from Tarana, NSW and wood and
brush box plywood supplied from northern NSW.
The five constituent theatres of the Sydney Opera House are the Concert Hall (with a seating
capacity of 2,679), the Opera Theatre (1,547 seats), the Drama Theatre (544 seats), the
Playhouse (398 seats) and the Studio Theatre (364 seats). The smallest building is home to the
Bennelong Restaurant.
The Concert Hall contains the Sydney Opera House Grand Organ, the largest mechanical tracker action
organ in the world with over 10,000 pipes.
The theatres are housed in a series of large shells, conceived by dissecting a hemisphere. The
Concert Hall and Opera Theatre are contained in the largest shells, and the other theatres are
located on the sides of the shells. Large free public performances have also often been staged
in front of the Monumental Steps that lead up to the base of the main sets of shells. A much
smaller set of shells set to one side of the Monumental steps houses one of the formal dining
restaurants.
Proposals
The Sydney Opera House can be said to have had its beginning during the late 1940s in the endeavours
of Eugene Goossens, the Director of the NSW State Conservatorium of Music at the time, who lobbied
to have a suitable venue for large theatrical productions built. 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 it. Cahill preferred a spot
near the Wynyard Railway Station, located in the north-western Sydney CBD.
The competition that Cahill organised received 233 entries. The basic design that was finally
accepted in 1955 was submitted by Jørn Utzon, a Danish architect. Utzon arrived in Sydney in 1957
to help supervise the project.
The Fort Macquarie Tram Depot, occupying the site at the time of these plans, was demolished in
1958, and formal construction of the Opera House began in March, 1959. The project was built in
three stages. Stage I (1959-1963) consisted of building the upper podium. Stage II (1963-1967)
saw the construction of the outer shells. Stage III consisted of the interior design and
construction (1967-73).
The cost of the project, even in October of that year, was still only $22.9 million, less than a
quarter of the final cost.
The second stage was still in process when Utzon was forced to resign because the
government was concerned about cost and time over-runs. His position
was principally taken over by Peter Hall, who became largely responsible for the interior design.
Other persons appointed that same year to replace Utzon were E.H. Farmer as government architect,
D.S. Littlemore and Lionel Todd.
Utzon's forced resignation caused a furore and divided the Sydney architecture profession.
There were rallies and marches to Sydney Town Hall led by architects such as Peter Killar and Harry
Seidler; other architects resigned their profession and became teachers, chefs, film makers and
artists in protest, and the Victorian Chapter of the RAIA (but not NSW) black banned the replacement
of Uzton by an Australian architect.
In 1960, American actor and singer Paul Robeson climbed on the scaffolding at the Sydney
Opera House while it was under construction to sing to the workers. The first public performance
was however given in the Opera Theatre on 28 September 1973 by the Australian Opera Company, while
the following night in the Concert Hall Charles Mackerras conducted the Sydney Symphony Orchestra.
A little after these first official performances, on 20 October 1973, the Sydney Opera House was
officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II. During the inaugural period 300 journalists arrived from
all over the world 'to see if the Sydney Opera House was to be a white elephant or a sacred cow'.
The Los Angeles correspondent spoke for many when he wrote: 'This, without question, must be the
most innovative, the most daring, the most dramatic and in many ways, the most beautifully constructed
home for the lyric and related muses in modern times' (Kerr, 1993, 25).
In 2003 the prestigious Pritzker Prize ('the architectural equivalent of a Nobel Prize') was
awarded to Joern Utzon, recognising the Sydney Opera House as his masterpiece. As a jury member
for Pritzker Prize in 2003, the American architect Frank Gehry commented:
'Utzon made a building well ahead of its time, far ahead of available technology, and he persevered
through extraordinary malicious criticism to a building that changed the image of an entire country.
It is the first time in our lifetime that such an epic piece of architecture gained such universal
presence' (Frank Gehry quoted in the Architecture Bulletin, Jul/Aug 2003, 19).
In 1998 the Sydney Opera House Trust began negotiations for the return of Joern Utzon as an
advisor. In 1999, Utzon agreed to supply a statement of his 'design principles' for the building.
These were delivered in 2002 and have been published as 'Sydney Opera House Utzon Design
Principles' (2002). These are, in Utzon's words, 'to be used as a permanent reference for the
long term conservation and management of the House and for any redevelopment of interiors as and
when that becomes necessary'. He emphasised however that, 'it is right that we should be looking
forward to the future of the Sydney Opera House and not back to the past. For this reason I
believe . . . Future architects should have the freedom to use up-to-date technology to find
solutions to the problems of today and tomorrow' (Kerr, 2003, 31).
The then Labor premier of NSW, Bob Carr, wrote about the Sydney Opera House as the
primary symbol of 'our vigorous cultural life' that will enable Sydney 'to thrive in the new
century'. In noting that 'Sydney and the architect of our city's icon, Joern Utzon, are
reconciled', Carr proudly states that 'all future work on the Opera House will be guided by
(Utzon's) original vision' (Carr, 2002, 225).
Joern Utzen passed away on the 30th November 2008 having never physically seen his
magnificent contribution to Australian culture in its completed form.
Bookings on 9250 7111.
Magnificent views of the Harbour Bridge and city skyline can be seen from
the Opera House.
Abridged from the
Heritage NSW website and Wikipedea