Sydney Opera House

Sydney Opera House seen from the harbour on a clear day, its white tiled shells and dark glass walls rising from the pink granite podium on Bennelong Point, with the towers of the city skyline and the Harbour Bridge beyond
Location: Sydney, AustraliaType: Concert HallYear: 1973Architect: Jørn UtzonPhotographer: Dietmar Rabich, Thomas Adams, Benh Lieu Song, Rachelle Haun, Jorge Láscar, Chris Olszewski, Larry Koester
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Sydney Opera House by Jørn Utzon on Bennelong Point

The Sydney Opera House, designed by the Danish architect Jørn Utzon, rises from Bennelong Point on Sydney Harbour as one of the world’s most recognisable buildings. Formally opened by Queen Elizabeth II on 20 October 1973, sixteen years after Utzon won the international competition for its design, the performing arts centre in Sydney gathers its venues beneath a cluster of white precast concrete shells set on a monumental granite-clad podium. Its largest venue, the Concert Hall, is home to the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, and in 2007 the building was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List as a masterpiece of 20th-century architecture.

Monumental Steps rising across the forecourt to the Sydney Opera House, visitors climbing towards the soaring tiled shells and glazed foyers under a blue sky

A competition and a sculptural idea

The project began in the late 1940s, when the conductor Eugene Goossens lobbied for a home for opera and orchestral music and insisted on Bennelong Point as its site. Premier Joseph Cahill launched a design competition in 1955 that drew 233 entries from 32 countries, and on 29 January 1957 a jury including Eero Saarinen named the little-known Utzon its winner. His drawings were, the jury wrote, simple to the point of being diagrammatic, yet capable of becoming one of the great buildings of the world. Utzon drew on natural forms such as clouds, shells, bird wings and palm leaves, and UNESCO calls the result a great urban sculpture set in a remarkable waterscape.

Close view of three tiled concrete shells of the Sydney Opera House against a deep blue sky, their ribbed edges framing tinted glass walls, with a bronze-framed glazed canopy in the foreground

The spherical solution and a million tiles

Working with the engineers Ove Arup & Partners, the design team went through at least 12 versions of the shells between 1957 and 1963, testing parabolas, circular ribs and ellipsoids in one of the earliest uses of computers for structural analysis. The breakthrough came in 1961, when every shell was cut from the surface of a single sphere with a radius of 75.2 metres, so that ribs of different lengths could be cast in common moulds. The shells are clad in 1,056,006 Swedish tiles by Höganäs in glossy white and matte cream, laid in a subtle chevron pattern and prefabricated in panels on the ground.

Low view along a Sydney Opera House roof showing the chevron pattern of glossy white and matte cream tiles divided by dark joints between the precast tile panels

Building the podium and the shells

Construction began in March 1959 with the podium, begun before the design was resolved, and the roof was built by Hornibrook, which precast some 2,400 ribs and 4,000 roof panels in an on-site factory. The building stands on 588 concrete piers sunk up to 25 metres below sea level, and its highest shell rises 67 metres above the water. As costs and delays mounted, a new state government withheld his fees, and Utzon resigned on 28 February 1966, leaving Australia never to return.

Inside the Sydney Opera House, fanned precast concrete roof ribs meeting a central concrete beam beside the great glass wall and its copper-toned steel mullions

Peter Hall and the interiors

The interiors were completed by a team led by Peter Hall within the partnership of Hall, Todd and Littlemore, which rewrote the brief, separated concert and opera into different halls and resolved the great glass walls that close the open ends of the shells. Inside, off-form concrete, brush box timber and Australian white birch plywood give the foyers and halls a warm, crafted character, and Hall introduced the magenta upholstery that still colours the Concert Hall seats. The first public concert there, an all-Wagner programme by the Sydney Symphony Orchestra with Birgit Nilsson, took place on 5 September 1973, weeks before the royal opening.

Timber-clad stepped underside of an auditorium rising above a concrete stair in a Sydney Opera House foyer, red steel struts bracing the angled concrete walls and daylight entering from the glass wall

Reconciliation and the Concert Hall renewal

In the late 1990s the Sydney Opera House Trust reconciled with Utzon, appointing him design consultant for future work in 1999, and in 2004 the first interior rebuilt to his design opened as the Utzon Room, hung with his tapestry Homage to Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. He received the Pritzker Prize in 2003 and died in 2008 without seeing the finished building. Between February 2020 and July 2022 ARM Architecture renewed the Concert Hall with the acoustic consultants Müller-BBM: 18 magenta petal-shaped reflectors replaced the acrylic rings above the stage, the stage was lowered by 400 millimetres, and a new passage and lift opened every foyer level to people with limited mobility.

Concert Hall ceiling of the Sydney Opera House in 2019, brush box timber ribs and rows of lights fanning around a coffered crown above the acrylic acoustic rings and the pipes of the Grand Organ

The building today and credits

Today the Sydney Opera House stages more than 1,800 performances a year for over 1.4 million people, and more than ten million visitors come to Bennelong Point annually. The photography is by Dietmar Rabich, Thomas Adams, Benh Lieu Song, Rachelle Haun, Jorge Láscar, Chris Olszewski and Larry Koester, shared on Wikimedia Commons under CC BY 2.0 and CC BY-SA 4.0 licences; Rachelle Haun’s Concert Hall views date from 2019, before the renewal.

Sydney Opera House gallery

Sydney Opera House seen from the harbour on a clear day, its white tiled shells and dark glass walls rising from the pink granite podium on Bennelong Point, with the towers of the city skyline and the Harbour Bridge beyondSydney Opera House lit up at night, golden light glowing through the glass walls beneath its white shells and coloured reflections rippling across the harbour, with the lights of the city hillside behindMonumental Steps rising across the forecourt to the Sydney Opera House, visitors climbing towards the soaring tiled shells and glazed foyers under a blue skyPanoramic dusk view across Sydney Harbour of the Sydney Opera House beside the Sydney Harbour Bridge, a three-masted yacht on violet water and the city skyline glowing under a pink skyClose view of three tiled concrete shells of the Sydney Opera House against a deep blue sky, their ribbed edges framing tinted glass walls, with a bronze-framed glazed canopy in the foregroundWide view of the two main groups of shells of the Sydney Opera House rising above the curved granite-clad podium and its shaded terrace, seen across the paved concourse under a cloudless skyLow view along a Sydney Opera House roof showing the chevron pattern of glossy white and matte cream tiles divided by dark joints between the precast tile panelsUnderside of a Sydney Opera House shell tip seen from below, the exposed precast concrete ribs converging at the apex with the sun flaring behind against a pale blue skyInside the Sydney Opera House, fanned precast concrete roof ribs meeting a central concrete beam beside the great glass wall and its copper-toned steel mullionsSunlit foyer of the Sydney Opera House under curved copper-coloured steel glazing ribs, a wide stair rising beneath the timber-clad underside of the hall and visitors looking out over the harbourTimber-clad stepped underside of an auditorium rising above a concrete stair in a Sydney Opera House foyer, red steel struts bracing the angled concrete walls and daylight entering from the glass wallUpper foyer of the Sydney Opera House with sweeping purple-carpeted steps beneath the curved timber-ribbed ceiling and copper-toned glazing ribs, the harbour visible through the glass wallConcert Hall ceiling of the Sydney Opera House in 2019, brush box timber ribs and rows of lights fanning around a coffered crown above the acrylic acoustic rings and the pipes of the Grand OrganCurving rows of white birch Concert Hall seats with magenta upholstery at the Sydney Opera House, rising towards brush box timber walls and the upper boxesRed-carpeted foyer of the Joan Sutherland Theatre at the Sydney Opera House, a red bar counter with globe lamps beneath angled concrete ceiling beams and red steps leading to harbour-view windowsBennelong restaurant inside the smallest group of shells at the Sydney Opera House, white-clothed tables and grey chairs beneath ribbed concrete vaults rising to a tall glass wallLooking up at the glass wall of a Sydney Opera House foyer, rows of copper-toned steel mullions and glazing bars framing the sky beside the timber-clad exterior of the hallTip of a Sydney Opera House shell against a bright blue sky, the tiled roof curving over its concrete rib edge and the green-tinted glass wall tucked beneath

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