Sydney Opera House

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Sydney Opera House

Location of Sydney Opera House in Sydney

General information
Status

Type

Complete

Concert hall

Arts centre

Architectural Expressionist
style
Location
Bennelong Point, Sydney
Country

Australia

335131.2S
Coordinates 1511250.5ECoordinates:
335131.2S 1511250.5E
Elevation

4 m (13 ft)

Current
tenants

Opera Australia

The Australian Ballet

Sydney Theatre Company

Sydney Symphony
Orchestra

(+ others)

Groundbreak 1 March 1959

ing
Construction
1 March 1959
started
Completed

1973

Opening

20 October 1973

Inaugurated 20 October 1973

Cost

A$102 million, equivalent to

~A$859 million in 2012[1]

Client

NSW Government

Owner

NSW Government

Height

65 m (213 ft)
Dimensions

Other
dimensions

Structural
system

length 183 m (600 ft)

width 120 m (394 ft)

area 1.8 ha (4.4 acres)

Technical details
Concrete frame & precast
concrete ribbed roof

Design and construction

Architect

Jrn Utzon

Structural
engineer

Ove Arup & Partners

Civil & Civic (level 1), M.R.

Hornibrook (level 2 and 3 and
interior)

Main
contractor

Other information

Seating
capacity

Concert Hall 2,679

Joan Sutherland Theatre

1,507

Drama Theatre 544

Playhouse 398

The Studio 400

Utzon Room 210

Total 5,738

Website
sydneyoperahouse.com

UNESCO World Heritage Site

Type

Cultural

Criteria

Designated

2007 (31st session)

Reference n
166rev
o.
State Party

Australia

Region

Asia-Pacific
References
Coordinates[2]

The Sydney Opera House is a multi-venue performing arts centre in Sydney, New South Wales,
Australia. Situated on Bennelong Point in Sydney Harbour, close to the Sydney Harbour Bridge,
the facility is adjacent to the Sydney central business district and the Royal Botanic Gardens,
between Sydney and Farm Coves.

Designed by Danish architect Jrn Utzon, the facility formally opened on 20 October 1973[3]
after a gestation beginning with Utzon's 1957 selection as winner of an international design
competition. The Government of New South Wales, led by the premier, Joseph Cahill, authorised
work to begin in 1958 with Utzon directing construction. The government's decision to build
Utzon's design is often overshadowed by circumstances that followed, including cost and
scheduling overruns as well as the architect's ultimate resignation.[4]
Though its name suggests a single venue, the project comprises multiple performance venues
which together are among the busiest performing arts centres in the world hosting over 1,500
performances each year attended by some 1.2 million people. The venues produce and present a
wide range of in-house productions and accommodate numerous performing arts companies,
including four key resident companies: Opera Australia, The Australian Ballet, the Sydney
Theatre Company and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. As one of the most popular visitor
attractions in Australia, more than seven million people visit the site each year, with 300,000
people participating annually in a guided tour of the facility.[5][6]
Identified as one of the 20th century's most distinctive buildings and one of the most famous
performing arts centres in the world,[7][8][9] the facility is managed by the Sydney Opera House
Trust, under the auspices of the New South Wales Ministry of the Arts. The Sydney Opera House
became a UNESCO World Heritage Site on 28 June 2007.[10]
Contents

1 Description
o

1.1 Performance venues and facilities

1.2 Other facilities

2 Construction history
o

2.1 Origins

2.2 Design and construction

2.2.1 Stage I: Podium

2.2.2 Stage II: Roof

2.2.3 Stage III: Interiors

2.3 Significant changes to Utzon's design

2.4 Completion and cost

3 Jrn Utzon and his resignation

4 Architectural design role of Peter Hall

5 Opening

6 Performance firsts

7 Reconciliation with Utzon; building refurbishment

8 Public and commemorative events

9 Awards

10 See also

11 References

12 Bibliography

13 External links

Description

The facility features a modern expressionist design, with a series of large precast concrete
"shells",[11] each composed of sections of a sphere of 75.2 metres (246 ft 8.6 in) radius,[12]
forming the roofs of the structure, set on a monumental podium. The building covers 1.8 hectares
(4.4 acres) of land and is 183 m (600 ft) long and 120 m (394 ft) wide at its widest point. It is
supported on 588 concrete piers sunk as much as 25 m (82 ft) below sea level.
Although the roof structures are commonly referred to as "shells" (as in this article), they are
precast concrete panels supported by precast concrete ribs, not shells in a strictly structural sense.
[13]
Though the shells appear uniformly white from a distance, they actually feature a subtle
chevron pattern composed of 1,056,006 tiles in two colours: glossy white as well as matte cream.
The tiles were manufactured by the Swedish company Hgans AB which generally produced
stoneware tiles for the paper-mill industry.[14]
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.[15]
Of the two larger spaces, the Concert Hall is in the western group of shells, the Joan Sutherland
Theatre in the eastern group. The scale of the shells was chosen to reflect the internal height
requirements, with low entrance spaces, rising over the seating areas up to the high stage towers.
The smaller venues (the Drama Theatre, the Playhouse and the Studio) are within the podium,
beneath the Concert Hall. A smaller group of shells set to the western side of the Monumental
Steps houses the Bennelong Restaurant. The podium is surrounded by substantial open public

spaces, and the large stone-paved forecourt area with the adjacent monumental steps is regularly
used as a performance space.
Performance venues and facilities

The Sydney Opera House includes a number of performance venues:[16]

Concert Hall: With 2,679 seats, the home of the Sydney Symphony
Orchestra and used by a large number of other concert presenters. It
contains the Sydney Opera House Grand Organ, the largest mechanical
tracker action organ in the world, with over 10,000 pipes. [citation needed]

Joan Sutherland Theatre: A proscenium theatre with 1,507 seats,[17] the

Sydney home of Opera Australia and The Australian Ballet. Until 16 October
2012 it was known as the Opera Theatre.[18][19]

Drama Theatre: A proscenium theatre with 544 seats, used by the Sydney
Theatre Company and other dance and theatrical presenters.

Playhouse: An end-stage theatre with 398 seats.

Studio: A flexible space with a maximum capacity of 400, depending on

configuration.

Utzon Room: A small multi-purpose venue, seating up to 210.

Recording Studio

Outdoor Forecourt: A flexible open-air venue with a wide range of

configuration options, including the possibility of utilising the Monumental
Steps as audience seating, used for a range of community events and major
outdoor performances. The Forecourt will be closed to visitors and
performances in 20112014 to construct a new entrance tunnel to a rebuilt
loading dock for the Joan Sutherland Theatre.

Other areas (for example the northern and western foyers) are also used for performances on an
occasional basis. Venues are also used for conferences, ceremonies and social functions.
Other facilities

The building also houses a recording studio, cafes, restaurants, bars and retail outlets. Guided
tours are available, including a frequent tour of the front-of-house spaces, and a daily backstage
tour that takes visitors backstage to see areas normally reserved for performers and crew
members.

Interior of the Concert Hall

Construction history
Origins

Bennelong Point with tram depot in the 1920s (top left-hand side of photograph)

Construction progress in 1966

Planning 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: Cahill had wanted it to be on or near Wynyard Railway Station in the northwest of the
CBD.[20]
An international design competition was launched by Cahill on 13 September 1955 and received
233 entries, representing architects from 32 countries. The criteria specified a large hall seating
3,000 and a small hall for 1,200 people, each to be designed for different uses, including fullscale operas, orchestral and choral concerts, mass meetings, lectures, ballet performances and
other presentations.[21]
The winner, announced in 1957, was Jrn Utzon, a Danish architect. According to legend the
Utzon design was rescued from a final cut of 30 "rejects" by the noted Finnish American
architect Eero Saarinen. The prize was 5,000.[22] Utzon visited Sydney in 1957 to help supervise
the project.[23] His office moved to Palm Beach, Sydney in February 1963.[24]
Utzon received the Pritzker Architecture Prize, architecture's highest honour, in 2003.[25] The
Pritzker Prize citation read:
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.
Design and construction

The Fort Macquarie Tram Depot, occupying the site at the time of these plans, was demolished in
1958 and construction began in March 1959. It was built in three stages: stage I (19591963)
consisted of building the upper podium; stage II (19631967) the construction of the outer shells;
stage III (19671973) interior design and construction.
Stage I: Podium

Stage I commenced on 2 March 1959 with the construction firm Civil & Civic, monitored by the
engineers Ove Arup and Partners.[26] The government had pushed for work to begin early, fearing
that funding, or public opinion, might turn against them. However, Utzon had still not completed
the final designs. Major structural issues still remained unresolved. By 23 January 1961, work
was running 47 weeks behind,[26] mainly because of unexpected difficulties (inclement weather,
unexpected difficulty diverting stormwater, construction beginning before proper construction
drawings had been prepared, changes of original contract documents). Work on the podium was
finally completed in February 1963. The forced early start led to significant later problems, not
least of which was the fact that the podium columns were not strong enough to support the roof
structure, and had to be re-built.[27]
Stage II: Roof

Construction progress in 1968

Sydney Opera House shell ribs

The glazed ceramic tiles of the Sydney Opera House

The shells of the competition entry were originally of undefined geometry,[28] but, early in the
design process, the "shells" were perceived as a series of parabolas supported by precast concrete
ribs. However, engineers Ove Arup and Partners were unable to find an acceptable solution to
constructing them. The formwork for using in-situ concrete would have been prohibitively
expensive, and, because there was no repetition in any of the roof forms, the construction of
precast concrete for each individual section would possibly have been even more expensive.
From 1957 to 1963, the design team went through at least 12 iterations of the form of the shells
trying to find an economically acceptable form (including schemes with parabolas, circular ribs
and ellipsoids) before a workable solution was completed. The design work on the shells
involved one of the earliest uses of computers in structural analysis, to understand the complex
forces to which the shells would be subjected.[29]The computer system was also used in the
assembly of the arches. The pins in the arches were surveyed at the end of each day, and the
information was entered into the computer so the next arch could be properly placed the
following day. In mid-1961, the design team found a solution to the problem: the shells all being

created as sections from a sphere. This solution allows arches of varying length to be cast in a
common mould, and a number of arch segments of common length to be placed adjacent to one
another, to form a spherical section. With whom exactly this solution originated has been the
subject of some controversy. It was originally credited to Utzon. Ove Arup's letter to Ashworth, a
member of the Sydney Opera House Executive Committee, states: "Utzon came up with an idea
of making all the shells of uniform curvature throughout in both directions."[30] Peter Jones, the
author of Ove Arup's biography, states that "the architect and his supporters alike claimed to
recall the precise eureka moment ... ; the engineers and some of their associates, with equal
conviction, recall discussion in both central London and at Ove's house."
He goes on to claim that "the existing evidence shows that Arup's canvassed several possibilities
for the geometry of the shells, from parabolas to ellipsoids and spheres."[29] Yuzo Mikami, a
member of the design team, presents an opposite view in his book on the project, Utzon's Sphere.
[31][32]
It is unlikely that the truth will ever be categorically known, but there is a clear consensus
that the design team worked very well indeed for the first part of the project and that Utzon,
Arup, and Ronald Jenkins (partner of Ove Arup and Partners responsible for the Opera House
project) all played a very significant part in the design development.[33]
As Peter Murray states in The Saga of the Sydney Opera House:[27]
... the two menand their teamsenjoyed a collaboration that was remarkable in its fruitfulness
and, despite many traumas, was seen by most of those involved in the project as a high point of
architect/engineer collaboration.
The design of the roof was tested on scale models in wind tunnels at Southampton University
and later NPL in order to establish the wind-pressure distribution around the roof shape in very
high winds, which helped in the design of the roof tiles and their fixtures.[34][35]
The shells were constructed by Hornibrook Group Pty Ltd,[36] who were also responsible for
construction in Stage III. Hornibrook manufactured the 2400 precast ribs and 4000 roof panels in
an on-site factory and also developed the construction processes.[27] The achievement of this
solution avoided the need for expensive formwork construction by allowing the use of precast
units (it also allowed the roof tiles to be prefabricated in sheets on the ground, instead of being
stuck on individually at height). Ove Arup and Partners' site engineer supervised the construction
of the shells, which used an innovative adjustable steel-trussed "erection arch" to support the
different roofs before completion. On 6 April 1962, it was estimated that the Opera House would
be completed between August 1964 and March 1965.
Stage III: Interiors

The Concert Hall and organ

View from the stage of the Concert Hall.

View from the stage of the The Joan Sutherland Theatre.

Interior of the Studio Theatre.

Stage III, the interiors, started with Utzon moving his entire office to Sydney in February 1963.
However, there was a change of government in 1965, and the new Robert Askin government
declared the project under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Public Works. This ultimately led to
Utzon's resignation in 1966 (see below).

The cost of the project so far, even in October 1966, was still only $22.9 million,[37] less than a
quarter of the final $102 million cost. However, the projected costs for the design were at this
stage much more significant.
The second stage of construction was progressing toward completion when Utzon resigned. 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.
Following Utzon's resignation, the acoustic advisor, Lothar Cremer, confirmed to the Sydney
Opera House Executive Committee (SOHEC) that Utzon's original acoustic design allowed for
only 2000 seats in the main hall and further stated that increasing the number of seats to 3000 as
specified in the brief would be disastrous for the acoustics. According to Peter Jones, the stage
designer, Martin Carr, criticised the "shape, height and width of the stage, the physical facilities
for artists, the location of the dressing rooms, the widths of doors and lifts, and the location of
lighting switchboards."[38]
Significant changes to Utzon's design