Sydney Opera House at 40:

One man’s mission, a nation’s treasure

By Pramod De Silva after a recent tour of Australia

There is one building in the world that constantly comes on top in “Modern Wonders of the World” contests organised from time to time. This building, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is so distinctive that there is simply no other building like it in the whole world. It is an architectural wonder by any measure and looks almost alien - it could be at home in any Star Wars movie.

Yes, the Sydney Opera House is a building like no other. I have always wanted to see the Sydney Opera House up close and last week, I stood on the steps of the Opera House and wondered about the sheer architectural genius of Danish architect Jorn Utzon.

Situated on Bennlong Point in Sydney harbour, close to the world famous Sidney harbour Bridge (an iconic structure in its own right), the Opera House is adjacent to the Sydney CBD and the Royal Botanic gardens (free admission).

Location

One cannot imagine more ideal location for an Opera House, especially one so opulent. It looks ready to sail at any moment, its dome-shaped ‘sails’ rustling against the wind. For a building that is practically on water, nothing else could have been appropriate.

One of the most famous landmarks in the world, around seven million tourists from all over the globe visit the Opera House every year. The Opera House, which celebrated its 40th anniversary in October, hosts around 1,500 performances every year, attracting around 1.2 million locals and foreigners.

A further 300,000 people take part in guided tours of the building, which do not include a performance. ‘Opera House’ is a bit of a misnomer, because every kind of musical/drama show is held at this landmark venue. It is the home of the Australian Ballet, Opera Australia, Sydney Theatre Company and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. Several leading Sri Lankan musicians have performed here, enthralling both Lankan expat and Australians.

The history of the Sydney Opera House goes back to 1957, when Utzon won an international design competition for a Performing Arts Centre for Sydney. Utzon had never even been to Australia at the time he won the competition. He was authorised to go ahead with construction in 1958, although several factors delayed the construction and completion.

Cost

Utzon ultimately resigned after cost (the building finally cost US$ 102 million to build in 1973, not adjusted for current inflation levels) and scheduling overruns. He left Australia in 1966, never to return and he never saw the completion of the building with his own eyes. It was left to Australian architect Peter Hall to undertake the rest of the project.

Utzon was not even invited to the opening ceremony of the Sydney Opera House. Later, the administrators of the Sydney Opera House reconciled with Utzon and invited him to supervise repairs and redesigns. They even built a room in his honour, now called the Utzon Room.

When you get closer (and well before going on the guided tour), it is easy to realise that the Opera House actually has several separate structures. The facility features a series of precast concrete shells each composed of sections of a sphere of 75.2 metres radius, forming the roofs of the structure.

The building covers 1.8 hectares (4.4 acres) of land and is 183 m long and 120 m wide at its widest point. Incidentally, Utzon’s Scandinavian connection ensured that a bit of Sweden lives on in Australia’s most iconic building - the glossy white and cream tiles used to embellish the shells are from the Swedish company Hoganas AB.

If you want a memorable souvenir from Sydney, you can now buy a similar tile as part of the Own Our House campaign which seeks to refurbish the ageing building in stages.

The bigger Concert Hall (2,679 seats) is in the western group of shells and the Joan Sutherland Theatre (1,500 seats) is 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.

Theatre

Smaller venues such as the 544 seat Drama Theatre, the 398 seat Playhouse, and 400 flexi-seat 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 building also houses a state-of-the-art recording studio.

If you visit the Sydney Opera House now, you will encounter a fair amount of construction, thanks to a new project to improve pedestrian access to the site. Still, you will have no problems crossing over to the world famous Botanical Gardens of Sydney, right next to the Opera House. It is not only an invigorating walk, but also a fine opportunity to capture more images of the Sydney Opera House from another angle. You can walk all the way to Farm Cove and catch views of the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge (with a cruise ship in the foreground perhaps) from a distance.

There is no doubt that this building is the vision of one man who challenged the very foundations of architecture - and even physics. Utzon, who passed away in 2008, received the Pritzker Architecture Prize, architecture’s highest honour, in 2003.

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.”

Getting there:

The easiest way to is to use Sydney’s extensive metro network. Just disembark at the Circular Quay station and you can see both the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge as you step down. It is also easy to reach the Sydney opera House by bus and ferry. If you want to get a taxi or limo, you can ask the driver to take you right up to the ‘Monumental Steps’ of the Opera House. If you have time on your hands, walk around the old quarter of Sydney and catch the Opera House from many more angles.