Adventures in Australia: The Sydney Opera House

On the day before Easter, Sylvia and I took a tour of the opera house which sits on a peninsula jutting into the harbor across from Sydney bridge and near the main ferry terminal.

In 1957 Jorn Utzon, a Danish architect, won an international architecture contest for his proposed design of the opera house.

Although his design was brilliant, engineers could not initially figure out how to build it. Eventually, the story goes, inspiration hit Mr. Utzon in the shape of an orange. He figured if he and the engineers thought of the building as segments of a sphere or orange, it could be built in pieces and then put together.

This model at the entrance to the opera house shows how the building's shapes related within a sphere:

The building was constructed with precast concrete ribs that were put together on site like a puzzle.

Here the ribs create a wall in a hallway. (That's a bench in the bottom right corner.) Quite beautiful, isn't it?

Mr. Utzon wanted the roof to be the color of clouds or sails above the water. Although the tiles on the opera house look white, they are actually both matte and shiny shades of tan, beige, and cream. (If they were actually white, they would be blinding in the sun). The tiles were made in Sweden and every time it rains, they self-clean.

Guess how many tiles are on the opera house roof.

Answer: 1,056,006 tiles form the roof of the Sydney Opera House.

Here you can see how the two main concert halls sit side by side.

The audience faces away from the harbor, so that the lobbies look out over the water.

(By the way, the carpet in the main concert hall lobby is deep, royal purple. In the opera theater, it is bright orange-red).

See how the lobby windows stick out like they do on a ship?

They were designed this way so that spectators would be able to see the view at night and not their own reflections. The glass was made in France and is extra thick to keep the harbor noise out.

Here's Sylvia looking out through the windows at the opera house during the day.

And here she is with her tour headphones on:

We had to wear headphones, so that we could hear the guide clearly as we traipsed about.

In addition to concrete, and often over the concrete, is a lot of beautiful wood, particularly in the concert halls. The types of wood were carefully chosen to create the best acoustics.

Don't these stairs look like an invitation to explore?

A few days after the tour, Sylvia and I went to see the ballet, Don Quixote at the opera house. No one is allowed to take photos inside the concert halls. But Sylvia and I can attest to the acoustic properties of the wood. When we clapped, it sounded like twenty people clapping.

Here's Sylvia (with binoculars around her neck) on the balcony during "interval" or intermission. The audience wore everything from fancy outfits to jeans.

Just what you always wanted to see -- a photo of my foot, right? I decided to dress for the ballet with some Sydney flair added to my basic black -- fancy socks with sandals. (Besides actually wearing clothes, there are no fashion rules here. But that's another post).