An iconic building that has become a symbol of Australia, the Sydney Opera House is a marvel of design.

1. ARCHITECTURAL WONDERS -
THE SYDNEY OPERA HOUSE
BY KENNY SLAUGHT

2. Every architect
dreams of creating
some signature
building, a structure
so iconic that it
becomes impossible
to imagine a city or
nation without it.

3. New York City has the
Statue of Liberty, Paris
has the Eiffel Tower, and
London has the Houses of
Parliament. And, in 1973,
Sydney, Australia, joined
the ranks of cities that
possess architectural
wonders with the
opening of the Sydney
Opera House.

4. Located on Bennelong
Point, near where the
first European settlers
arrived in Australia in the
late 1700s, the Sydney
Opera House began as
the dream of the premier
of New South Wales, J.J.
Cahill, and the director of
the state's
Conservatorium for
Music, Eugene Goossens.

5. Sixteen years after Danish
architect Jørn Utzon's
design was selected in a
competition, Queen
Elizabeth II presided over
a formal opening that
included music by
Beethoven and a
fireworks extravaganza.

6. Naturally, the 16 years
between the creation of
Utzon’s preliminary
designs and the
completion of the
building included
considerable strife, much
of which is of interest to
any student of
architecture, but the
Sydney Opera House
remains one of the
world's most
recognizable structures.

7. SYDNEY OPERA HOUSE FACTS AND FIGURES
• Part of the Opera House's charm
comes from its fanciful, delicate
design, which has been compared
to the sails of a ship or seashells.
• Of course, for many first-time
visitors, the initial reaction is one of
awe; the Opera House is an
enormous building, with its tallest
shell rising 221 feet above the sea.

8. SYDNEY OPERA HOUSE FACTS AND FIGURES
• About 217 miles of stressing cables
support a 26,800-ton roof covered
with more than a million individual
tiles and festooned with some 15,500
light bulbs.
• While it cost some $102 million to
build, roughly $95 million more than
the initial budget, the investment has
largely paid off, as experts have
estimated that the Opera House is
responsible for over $1 billion in
revenue for the country.

9. SYDNEY OPERA HOUSE FACTS AND FIGURES
• The building's interior is no less
impressive, in part because the Sydney
Opera House was exhaustively tested in
order to achieve world-class acoustics.
• Its Concert Hall can seat more than 2,500
individuals, while the Opera Theatre
boasts a capacity of over 1,500.
• The building also includes a chamber
music suite that doubles as a cinema,
rehearsal spaces, recording studios, a
drama theatre, gift shops, cafes,
restaurants, and many other spaces, given
the structure's more than 1,000 rooms.

10. THE DESIGN OF THE OPERA
HOUSE
• In the 1950s, the Opera House was
still a dream, though one that
moved forward rapidly after
Goossens convinced Cahill to pursue
a world-class performance space for
the city.
• Cahill's government announced a
design competition in 1955, and a
year later, 233 entries had been
received.

11. THE DESIGN OF THE OPERA
HOUSE
• Legend has it that an American judge,
Eero Saarinen, the architect behind the
St. Louis Arch, arrived late and
immediately dismissed everything the
other judges had recommended.
• In the pile of rejected designs, Saarinen
found Utzon's sketches and pronounced
them the clear winner.
• In January 1957, Utzon received £5,000
for winning the competition, and a few
months later, he arrived in Australia for
the first time.

12. THE DESIGN OF THE OPERA
HOUSE
• The design of the Opera House went
through numerous iterations based
on Utzon's initial sketches.
Reportedly, Utzon had been inspired
by the fronds of palm trees and the
process of shipbuilding, but his first
designs were considered impossible
from an engineering standpoint—
especially the dramatic roof shells.

13. THE DESIGN OF THE OPERA
HOUSE
• However, thanks to the help of Ove Arun, an
engineer and fellow Dane, Utzon struck
upon the notion of forming the shells from
triangular slices of a sphere, a process
immortalized in a bronze model in front of
the Opera House that suggests Utzon's
original methodology: dunking a beach ball
into a bathtub to observe the shapes that
could be cut from a spherical surface.
• Spherical segments, which offered
significantly more structural strength and
could be prefabricated, made what was
believed to be impossible completely
realistic.

14. ARCHITECTURE AS COALITION BUILDING - UTZON'S
DEPARTURE
• Despite overcoming engineering
challenges, Utzon's tenure as the chief
architect of the Sydney Opera House
became more notable for his dramatic
resignation.
• In many respects, massive public
architecture projects are limited as
much by political viability as aesthetic
or physical constraints, and when a
new government arose in New South
Wales, a new minister of public works
began to question Utzon's methods.

15. ARCHITECTURE AS COALITION BUILDING - UTZON'S
DEPARTURE
• A more adroit politician may have
succeeded at holding onto the
design reins.
• Utzon, unfortunately, preferred
principle, resigning from the project
in 1966, three years after the
original design called for the Opera
House to be completed. He would
not return to Australia.

16. ARCHITECTURE AS COALITION BUILDING - UTZON'S
DEPARTURE
• The Opera House's completion was led
by Australian architects, Peter Hall chief
among them, and while the exterior was
largely finished, the interior was not.
• Hall went to work, axing a proposed
multipurpose space and replacing it with
the present design of a separate Concert
Hall and Opera Theatre in order to
achieve the best possible acoustics.
• The Hall team finished the Opera House,
at a cost of $102 million, in 1973.

17. THE SYDNEY OPERA HOUSE AT 42
• While the Sydney Opera House
faced a tumultuous construction
process, it has unquestionably
become one of the most iconic
buildings in the world since its
completion.
• More than 8.2 million people visit
the Opera House every year, and it
has hosted everyone from Nelson
Mandela and Pope John Paul II to
Oprah Winfrey and Ella Fitzgerald.

18. THE SYDNEY OPERA HOUSE AT 42
• In 2007, the United Nations named
the Sydney Opera House a World
Heritage site, only a few years after
Utzon won the Pritzker Architecture
Prize, the profession's highest honor.
• However, Utzon felt that the highest
praise came in 2004, when the
Opera House's administrators
named the Reception Hall the
“Utzon Room" following the
architect's redesign of the space that
began in 1999.