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The Sydney Opera House

Sydney’s iconic Opera House is a triumph of engineering and architecture, recognizable around the world. As downunder journalist David Killick discovers, the famous Opera House would never have been built if it hadn’t been for the role of a designer from Michigan...

Sally Kalina loves coming to work. She has quite an “office”: The Sydney Opera House, with its glittering spinnaker-like roofs, and views over the sparkling blue waters of one of the world’s finest harbors.

As a tour guide, Sally has been taking visitors from around through the Opera House for the last five years, marveling at its multiple theaters and the sculptural harmony of its architecture. “I never get tired of it,” says Sally. “Every day’s different, meeting different people. I always learn from people on tour. It’s always looking different, in the morning when you see it, in the afternoon, it’s just an incredible building.”

What reactions do visitors have? “Quite taken aback. They can’t believe it’s so big, it’s like seeing the pyramids in Egypt. You know, they’re huge when you see them up close, and also I think the Concert Hall takes people’s breath away - it’s so unusual, so much wood, and just everything. It’s just overpowering.”

Today, the Opera House has become a symbol for a city and a country. “Its been a magnet to Australia. From a city that was not well-known for many, many years, and from a building that was criticized quite a bit at the beginning, it has done a full circle. It seems like everyone loves it and it has drawn people from all around the world.”

Indeed it has. From singer and actor Paul Robeson, who climbed the scaffolding when the building was under construction in 1960 to sing to the workers, to Queen Elizabeth II, who officially opened it on October 20, 1973, the Opera House has continued to draw world-famous visitors: Pope John Paul II, who spoke in the Concert Hall in 1986; Nelson Mandela, shortly after his release from prison, in 1990; President Clinton, who jogged into the Opera House in 1996; Hillary Clinton, who spoke on the role of women in the 21st century; Chancellor Helmut Kohl of Germany...And another visitor shortly after the Opera House was opened was The Chief Engineer’s editor-in-chief, John Fanning, then on furlough from serving in the Vietnam War. The building has created a lasting impression.

Just about every famous singer has performed here in some venue - jazz, operatic, classical and contemporary. They include Ella Fitzgerald, Sammy Davis, Jr., Luciano Pavarotti, Andrea Bocelli, Tony Bennett, KD Lang, Norah Jones, and, of course, Australia’s own opera diva soprano Dame Joan Sutherland.

In 2000, the Sydney Opera House set the stage for the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games, with 176 performances of 35 different events over a six-week period.

Yet for all its celebrated status, the Sydney Opera House might never have been built at all, or may well have looked quite different. Declared wildly fanciful and an engineering impossibility at the outset, its early history is mired in controversy, cost overruns, and rancorous disputes. The budgeted cost was $5 million; it ended up costing close to $75 million.

How did the saga begin?

In 1947, Belgian-British musician Eugene Goossens, who had been conductor of the Cincinnati orchestra, was engaged as principal conductor of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, and was amazed there was no opera house. goossens, explains Sally, petitioned New South Wales state premier Joseph Cahill.

“The premier said, ‘Mate, I’ve never been to an opera’, but he was an astute politician and he realized there was an election coming up...so politics and music prevailed. He decided to have this competition with architects submitting their sketches from all around the world.”

The site was one of Sydney’s most spectacular: Bennelong Point, jutting out from Circular Quay, which would allow the building to be viewed easily from all angles.

About 230 designs were submitted. “In 1957 all the judges arrived, trying to decide whom to choose when an American judge arrived a few days late.”

He was actually Finnish-American, Eero Saarinen, famous for the St. Louis Arch and TWA building in New York City. “Michigan boy, he came roaring in, looked at all the entry forms, he didn’t like anything, but we went to the reject pile...he looked through it, he saw the sketches of the Opera House, and he said ‘Gentlemen, that’s your winner!’”

The winner was Danish Architect Joern Utzon. What struck Saarinen was the dramatic, highly individual shape of the rooflines. Looking like spinnakers of a yacht under sail or upended shells, these roofs have also been described, in rugby parlance, as “a nun’s scrum.”

Utzon was supposedly inspired by palm fronds. He himself penned these splendidly poetic lines expressing his vision: “In the hot sun of the day it will be a beautiful white shimmering thing.”

The design has been called “an adventure at the edge of what was technically possible.” A sometimes overlooked aspect of Utzon’s designs is his emphasis on a supporting platform, based on his early inspiration from shipbuilding. The platform was not a problem; the roof shells, also called “the fifth facade” on the other hand, looked impossible to build.

Sure, it looked dramatic, but Utzon’s early designs did not work mathematically. As the most important structural requirement for any building if for the roof to stay up and for the building to hold together, a solution was imperative.

Together with another Dane, engineer Ove Arun, from London, Utzon worked for thousands of hours using 1950s-era computers to come up with the idea of a sphere.

A bronze model outside the Opera House explains Utzon’s and Arun’s reasoning. Think of a sphere or a globe - or an orange. Now slice it into quarters, or any number of adjoining shapes. All have the same radius, simplifying construction. These slices form the roofs: an elegant and simple solution. In Utzon’s own words: “After three years of intensive search for a basic geometry for the shell complex, I arrived in October 1961 with the spherical solution shown here. I call this my key to the shells because it solves all the problems of construction by opening up for mass production and precision in manufacture and simple erection and with this geometrical system I attain full harmony between all the shapes in this fantastic complex.”

The first attempts at gluing prefabricated pieces of concrete together had been made in San Francisco. For the Sydney Opera House, epoxy resin was used.

Because concrete loves compression, but cannot take tension, some 217 miles of pre-stressed post tension steel cabling were used. According to official figures, the entire building weighs 158,412 tons, with the roof shells along weighing 26,799 tons. A total of 7,442 square yards of glass were used in the windows. Large parts of the Opera House could be prefabricated, then swung into place by crane. The shells required an incredible 1,056,006 Swedish roof tiles. These are painted off-white and beige to reveal their distinctive chevron shapes. Putting all the pieces together was rather like a giant Lego set - another Danish design. A video shows what the construction was like: workers dangle from cranes high above the harbor as giant pieces of glass and concrete are maneuvered into place. A contemporary observer notes, wryly, that the methods used then would never be allowed under today’s stringent health and safety regulations.

Sadly, Utzon never got the chance to complete his design. A series of wranglings, costs disputes and political pressure compelled the Danish architect to resign in disgust in 1966. marches on parliament took place, but Utzon had had enough. It was up to an Australian design team, let by architect Peter Hall to complete the project.

The next stage, the interior, presented different problems. Originally, the Concert Hall was intended to serve for opera, ballet, symphonies and concerts. Acoustics make this difficult: if you are singing, you need a short reverberation time. A big orchestra needs a long reverberation time. If you put opera in the concert hall, Lucia di Lammermoor would sound more mad than usual, explains Sally. One solution, used in the Meyerson Symphony Center in Dallas, Texas, designed by architect IM Pei, is a roof that can be raised for symphonies and lowered for singers.

Utzon had realized the multi-purpose space would have been difficult, but had not finalized the plan. Hall decided to keep the Concert Hall for concerts and turned what was originally designed as the drama theater into an Opera Theater. By changing the design, he allowed the creation of three more theaters. Under the ten sails of the Opera House, a huge range of performances take place inside the Concert Hall, Opera Theater, Drama Theater, Playhouse and Studio. The walls of the Drama Theater and the Opera Theater are painted black, to focus attention on the stage.

The Concert Hall is the largest space, its elegant lacquered timber seating accommodating 2,679 people. Giant suspended acoustic “donuts” enhance sound quality. Timber is native eucalypt, from the gum tree; the over-all effect is light and Scandinavian.

The Opera Theater seats 1,547 people. Under another, smaller sail, diners can eat out in the Guillaume at Bennelong restaurant and enjoy nighttime views over the harbor.

Building the Sydney Opera House took 14 years. When the budget blew out and newspapers revealed the ever-increasing cost, a series of lotteries was held to finance the project. As the Aussies say: “No worries.”

Utzon, who in 2002 received architecture’s highest award, the Pritzker Prize, has never returned to see his design completed. There is a happy end, however, explains Sally. Both Joern utzon, now 86, and his son Jan, are involved with the Opera House’s latest refurbishments.

The $51 million project - with funding from the state government - will be the first structural change to the exterior of the building since it opened in 1973. It entails creating a 147 foot-long, 16-foot-wide loggia, or colonnade, on the western side. Underneath the colonnade, nine new large windows and doorways will open out from the theater foyers, affording panoramic views of the harbor, bridge, and Circular Quay.

NSW premier and Minister for The Arts, Bob Carr, says once completed, more than half of the western foyers of the Sydney Opera House will be glass. “The colonnade will create a spectacular vista for the thousands of visitors and international tourists who stroll around the western boardwalk each day.” A new room, the Utzon Room, has been opened. It features a simple Scandinavian design, full of natural timbers and finishes, and a striking 14m tapestry, designed by Utzon. It was inspired by CPE Bach’s Hamburg Symphonies, and Raphael’s painting, “Procession to Calvary”, and was woven by the Victorian Tapestry Workshop, supervised by Utzon’s daughter and artist, Lin.

The architect is thrilled to be involved with the Opera House refurbishment. Although not up to traveling at the moment, he said in a video message: “I am really delighted that we have been asked...to work on a better situation at the western side of the Opera House... The naming of the Utzon room was a ‘marvelous idea’. It gives me the greatest satisfaction. I don’t think you can give me more joy as the architect. It supercedes any medal of any kind that I could get and have got.”

Utzon’s involvement is good news, says Sally. “It’s lovely to know because it was a sad story when he left. He’s welcome back, if only we could get him to come to Australia...”

Another indication of the community involvement of the Opera House is the Bennelong Program, which has introduced children with visual impairments to the building.

With about 1,000 rooms, finding your way around the Opera House is a bit like finding your way around different decks in a big ship. It’s easy to get lost. Sally recounts how during one drama performance a young man on a pushbike with parcels to deliver made a mistake.

“The poor darling, he took the wrong turn and came on stage. He got a terrible fright and the actor, being an actor, could think very quickly and said, ‘Thank heavens, the parcels have come at last!’ So I think the audience thought it was all part of the script.”

another time, a family of possums from the neighboring Botanic Gardens, no doubt wanting some culture, wandered on stage.

One man who knows his way around and who would never step through a wrong door is Sydney Opera House acting facilities director, English-trained engineer Paul Ackhurst.

He is tasked with facility operations and maintenance - a big responsibility in a building that functions like a miniature city. “It covers everything from the domestic chores of cleaning and general support, raising the flags and the sundry sort of thing, right through to all the maintenance on all the systems, the theater systems, the HVAC systems, the sanitary systems, pretty much everything.”
Ceramic exterior tiles - all million plus of them - are relatively maintenance free, and largely self-cleaning. There are no ugly drain pipes; the rain simply washes them clean and drains down into the forecourt tiles. Cleaning the double-laminated topaz and white glass is more labor intensive.

Inside, Ackhurst ranges through seeming miles of corridors, past miles of cables and pipes. Rather than having separate floors, Ackhurst explains different levels are expressed by their height above sea level.

There are 27 plant rooms, but these are being consolidated into six, all computer-controlled.

The heat exchange system keeps all parts of the Opera House comfortable, except one glassed area facing north into the sun. The power bill is surprisingly economical, considering the size and scale of the Opera House.

Instead of large and ugly cooling towers, excess heat is released into the harbor. It has no harmful effect on marine life, says Ackhurst. “It’s very economical not building cooling towers...It’s an effective, safe way of using our excess heat.”

Another quirky fact: there are 15,500 light bulbs which have to be changed annually. How is this done? Carefully, via precipitous catwalks.

One catwalk takes maintenance engineers out onto the roof and along the spine of the roof shells for an invigorating but dizzying view.

Another remarkable engineering feature of the Sydney Opera House is its triple skin construction, which ensures superb sound insulation. “It’s like a building inside a building inside another building,” says Ackhurst.

With its curves and intersecting angles, the Opera House looks dramatic whichever way you look at it - inside or out. It’s an amazing building, and inspires an emotional response. In a time of international uncertainty, tension, and violence, it is tremendously uplifting to know that the human spirit can create enduring works that celebrate art and beauty.

As the sound of Amici Forever fills the Concert Hall, one cannot help but feel that Sydney Symphony Orchestra conductor Christopher Hogwood’s description of the role of classical music could easily apply to that of the whole Sydney Opera House: “Food for the soul, a hospital for the mind.”

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