Opera House

One building, treated as its own subject because the record justifies it. Utzon's competition win in 1957, the shells and the tile lids, the political fight that drove him out of the country in 1966, the opening by the Queen in 1973, and its inscription as World Heritage in 2007.

Part of Australia

117 moments in this segment.

1951 - Rose Seidler House. 's mother and awarded the Sulman Prize in 1951. It introduced Bauhaus derived modernism to Sydney domestic building.
1958 - Model of the roof shells. A model of the roof shells from the Red Book series in the New South Wales state archives. Utzon and the engineers at Ove Arup and Partners spent years testing forms before the sphere resolved the problem in 1961.
1958 - Site plan on Bennelong Point. The site plan from the Red Book, showing the building set out on Bennelong Point. The point had held a tram depot and, before that, Fort Macquarie.
1958 - Stage machinery plan. A stage machinery plan from the Red Book series. Much of the machinery specified in these drawings was cut or altered after Utzon left the project in 1966.
1962 - Shell geometry drawing. Geometrical construction drawing for the roof shells, from the series held by the New South Wales state archives as the Yellow Book. The spherical solution let every shell be cut from the surface of one sphere so that ribs could be repeated instead of individually made.
1968 - Australia Square in 1968. Australia Square photographed in 1968, the year after completion. Seidler had trained under Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer before emigrating.
1969 - Australia Square in 1969
2003 - Can Lis, Mallorca. Can Lis on Mallorca, the house Utzon built for himself in the 1970s after leaving the Sydney project. He lived on the island for much of his later life.
2004 - Shell edges in close view. A close view of the shell edges and the tiled chevron panels. The roof is the element that consumed most of the project's time and budget.
2005 - The shells from the forecourt. The shells seen from the forecourt. UNESCO inscribed the building on the World Heritage List in 2007, while Utzon was still alive, which is rare for a modern work.
2006 - Elineberg towers, Helsingborg. The Elineberg towers at Helsingborg in Sweden, developed from an Utzon competition entry. He worked on the scheme between 1954 and 1966, overlapping the Sydney years.
2006 - Seidler house at Killara. The house Harry and Penelope Seidler designed for themselves at Killara in Sydney. Penelope Seidler was a partner in the practice as well as an architect in her own right.
2006 - Seidler house, rear elevation. The rear of the Seidler house at Killara, stepping down its sloping site. Australian modernism worked out much of its language in private houses.
2007 - Glenmore Hotel roof terrace. The Glenmore Hotel roof terrace at The Rocks, from which Utzon is said to have sketched the building. The story is repeated locally and is not documented, so it is best treated as legend rather than record.
2007 - Kingo Houses, Helsingor. The Kingo Houses at Helsingor in Denmark, built by Utzon between 1956 and 1960. The courtyard plan grouped identical units around a shared landscape.
2007 - Middelboe house, Holte. The Middelboe house at Holte in Denmark, designed by Utzon between 1953 and 1955, in the years just before the Sydney competition.
2007 - Paustian house, Copenhagen. The Paustian furniture house in Copenhagen, built by Utzon in the 1980s. Its columns branch overhead in a way he described in terms of a forest.
2007 - Paustian house interior. The interior of the Paustian house in Copenhagen. Utzon returned to public building in Denmark decades after the Sydney dispute.
2008 - Utzon's house at Hellebaek. Utzon's own house at Hellebaek in Denmark, built between 1950 and 1952. He designed it several years before entering the Sydney competition.
2009 - Jeddah stadium model. Utzon's model for a sports stadium at Jeddah in Saudi Arabia. His practice took international commissions throughout the Sydney years.
2009 - Australia Square. 1961 and 1967. The circular tower was the tallest building in Australia when it was completed.
2009 - QPAC facade on Grey Street. The Concert Hall facade on Grey Street at South Brisbane. The centre houses a concert hall, a lyric theatre and two smaller venues.
2010-06-06 - $150m for Opera House upgrade. ABC News reports funding of $150 million for an Opera House upgrade in 2010, part of a long programme of staged renewal works.
2010-11-09 - La Stupenda gets final standing ovation. ABC News reports the final ovation for Joan Sutherland, known in Italy as La Stupenda. She died in 2010.
2010-12-06 - Dame Joan Sutherland - Home! Sweet Home, Sydney Opera House farewell performance. Dame Joan Sutherland sings Home Sweet Home at her Sydney Opera House farewell. She was born in Sydney in 1926 and was among the most celebrated sopranos of the twentieth century.
2011 - Bank Melli model, Tehran. A model for Utzon's Bank Melli branch in Tehran, designed between 1959 and 1962 while the Sydney shells were unresolved.
2012-02-02 - 1973: Sydney Opera House: a brief history of its design and construction. A short account of the building's design and construction prepared in the year it opened. The 1957 competition drew 233 entries and Utzon's was reportedly retrieved from a rejected pile by the assessor Eero Saarinen.
2012-05-15 - Seekae - '3' (Sunrise Session in the Utzon Room). A sunrise session performance in the Utzon Room, the one interior in the building completed to the architect's own design principles after his 1999 reengagement as a consultant.
2012-05-23 - Seekae - "Yech" (Sunrise Session in the Utzon Room). A second sunrise session recorded in the Utzon Room. The room's reworking in 2004 was the only part of the interior Utzon shaped.
2012 - Roof tiles in close view. Close view of the roof tiles. The cladding uses over a million Swedish made tiles in glossy and matt finishes, laid in chevron panels so the surface changes with the light rather than glaring.
2012 - Precast ribs beneath a shell. Precast concrete panels and ribs supporting a smaller group of shells on the western side of the monumental steps. The whole roof is assembled from repeated precast segments rather than poured in place.
2012 - The building on Bennelong Point. The completed building on Bennelong Point. Utzon won the 1957 design competition against 232 other entries, and the assessor Eero Saarinen is credited with retrieving the scheme after other judges had set it aside.
2012 - Seen from the harbour. The building seen from the water, the view for which it was designed. Utzon conceived the shells to be read against the harbour from every direction rather than from one front elevation.
2012 - The Bennelong shells. The Bennelong, housed in the smaller group of shells on the western side of the monumental steps. The point is named for Woollarawarre Bennelong, a Wangal man taken by the colonists in 1789.
2012 - Kakadu visitor centre facade. Facade slats at the Kakadu National Park visitor centre by Glenn Murcutt. Murcutt won the Pritzker Prize in 2002, the only Australian to have done so.
2013 - Vivid projections on the sails. Projections on the sails during Vivid Sydney. The festival began in 2009 and lights the roof each winter, treating the shells as a projection surface.
2013-08-09 - Art After Hours | Architect Penelope Seidler. Penelope Seidler in conversation at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. She practised with Harry Seidler, whose Australia Square tower of 1967 introduced high modernism to Sydney.
2013-10-16 - ABC: Official Opening of the Sydney Opera House Opening (1973). The ABC's broadcast of the official opening in 1973. Jorn Utzon was not invited to the ceremony and his name was not mentioned in the speeches.
2014 - Concert Hall from the stage. The Concert Hall photographed from the stage. The interiors were completed by Peter Hall after Utzon's departure and depart substantially from the original drawings.
2014 - Joan Sutherland Theatre from the stage. The Joan Sutherland Theatre seen from the stage. The room was originally intended as the main concert hall before the brief was reversed during construction.
2014 - Seidler tower in the Sydney CBD. A Harry Seidler tower in the Sydney central business district. His practice shaped a substantial part of the city's commercial skyline over four decades.
2014-08-19 - Behind the Scenes at the Sydney Opera House with Emma Matthews. Opera Australia takes a soprano behind the scenes at the Sydney Opera House. The Joan Sutherland Theatre has a notoriously small orchestra pit.
2015 - Tiled surface from the podium. The tiled surface seen from below at the podium. The two finishes were specified so the shells would read as texture rather than as a single reflective sheet.
2015 - Australian embassy, Paris. The Australian embassy in Paris, designed by Harry Seidler with Peter Hirst and completed in 1977. Its curved plan follows the shape of the site near the Seine.
2015-07-21 - UK Queen at Sydney Opera House. AP Archive footage of the Queen at the Sydney Opera House. She returned to the building several times after the 1973 opening.
2016-03-16 - Vivid LIVE 2016: Line Up. The Vivid LIVE line up announcement for 2016. Vivid lights the Opera House sails alongside a music programme inside the building.
2016-04-26 - Tour the Sydney Opera House in 360° | Featuring soprano Nicole Car and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. A 360 degree tour of the Sydney Opera House with a soprano and the resident orchestra. The site at Bennelong Point was previously a tram depot and, before that, Fort Macquarie.
2016-06-14 - Behind the scenes at the Sydney Opera House with our concertmaster for Mahler Four - Long Version. Behind the scenes at the Sydney Opera House with the Sydney Symphony's concertmaster preparing Mahler. The Concert Hall seats around 2,600.
2016 - Cremorne Theatre, Brisbane. The Cremorne Theatre at the Queensland Performing Arts Centre, the smallest of its four venues, used for new and experimental work.
2016-09-05 - Conserving a Concrete Masterpiece | Sydney Opera House. The Sydney Opera House on conserving its concrete. The structure is precast and in situ concrete, and the salt air of the harbour is a continuing maintenance problem.
2017-03-13 - The Mooloomba house - Andresen O'Gorman. The Mooloomba house by Andresen O'Gorman, presented by Museums of History New South Wales. Timber and lightweight construction characterise much subtropical Australian design.
2017-03-13 - Iconic Australian Houses. Museums of History New South Wales presents a programme on iconic Australian houses. Domestic architecture is where Australian modernism was most freely worked out.
2017-03-22 - Testing New Acoustic Reflectors in the Concert Hall | Sydney Opera House. New acoustic reflectors being tested in the Concert Hall. The original 1973 interiors were designed after Utzon's departure and did not follow his acoustic intentions.
2017 - Verdi Requiem in the Concert Hall. A performance of Verdi's Requiem in the Concert Hall in August 2017. The Sydney Symphony Orchestra has been resident in the hall since the building opened.
2017 - QPAC Concert Hall foyer. The Concert Hall foyer at the Queensland Performing Arts Centre in Brisbane, opened in 1985 to a design by Robin Gibson.
2017 - QPAC Concert Hall stairwell. The Concert Hall stairwell at QPAC in Brisbane. The centre sits in the South Bank cultural precinct beside the Queensland Art Gallery.
2017-11-28 - The Magic of Theatre | Celebrating our Joan Sutherland Theatre. The Sydney Opera House celebrates its Joan Sutherland Theatre. The venue was renamed in 2012 for the Sydney born soprano.
2017-12-04 - 1980s, 1990s Sydney Opera House and Skyline, HD from 35mm. The Sydney Opera House and city skyline filmed on 35mm in the 1980s and 1990s. The building was by then the most recognisable in Australia.
2018-03-26 - Inside the Renewed Joan Sutherland Theatre | The curtain rises on $71 million-dollar upgrade. Inside the renewed Joan Sutherland Theatre after a $71 million project. The theatre is the home of Opera Australia and the Australian Ballet in Sydney.
2018-05-25 - Vivid Sydney - Sydney Opera House, Harbour Bridge, Customs House, MCA. Vivid Sydney lighting on the Opera House, Harbour Bridge, Customs House and the Museum of Contemporary Art. The festival began in 2009.
2018 - From a Sydney ferry. The building from a Sydney ferry. The commuter ferries pass Bennelong Point continually, which is how most Sydney residents see it.
2018-07-25 - Badu Gili | Opera House daily sails lighting (Director’s Commentary by Rhoda Roberts AO). A director's commentary on the daily Badu Gili sail lighting. The projections put contemporary First Nations art onto the most photographed surface in Australia.
2018-12-06 - Sydney Opera House: A Grand Design | Presented by Kevin McCloud. Kevin McCloud presents a programme on the design of the Sydney Opera House. The engineering was carried out by Ove Arup and Partners over years of iteration on the roof geometry.
2019-02-11 - Turandot | Andeka Gorrotxategi sings 'Nessun Dorma' on top of the Sydney Opera House. A tenor sings Nessun Dorma on top of the Sydney Opera House for Opera Australia. The company is the building's resident opera producer.
2019-02-14 - Museum Lecture: If Walls Could Talk , Stories from the Royal Exhibition Building. A Museums Victoria lecture on the Royal Exhibition Building in Melbourne. Completed in 1880, it was inscribed on the World Heritage List in 2004, the first building in Australia to be listed.
2019-04-14 - Joan Sutherland Theatre | Accessibility Fly-through. An accessibility fly-through of the Joan Sutherland Theatre. Accessibility works were a major part of the building's decade of renewal.
2019 - Curtain of the Sun. The Curtain of the Sun, designed by John Coburn and woven at Aubusson in France for the Sydney Opera House. Coburn made a pair of curtains, the Sun and the Moon, for the two main halls.
2019 - Bushfire smoke over the harbour. 2019, during the fire season that burned through the summer of 2019 and 2020.
2019 - Julian Rose House, Wahroonga. The Julian Rose House at Wahroonga, one of three Seidler houses on the same site. He built them within a few years of arriving in Australia in 1948.
2019-06-23 - Capitol Theatre, Melbourne, Australia. The Capitol Theatre in Melbourne, designed by Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahony Griffin and opened in 1924. Its crystalline plaster ceiling is lit in changing colours.
2019-06-25 - Inside the Studio during Vivid LIVE | Sydney Opera House. Inside the studio during Vivid LIVE at the Sydney Opera House. Vivid Sydney is an annual light and music festival held across the city.
2019-07-04 - Briggs - "Bad Apples" (Live at Sydney Opera House). Briggs performs Bad Apples live at the Sydney Opera House. His label of the same name signs First Nations hip hop artists.
2019-07-04 - Briggs | Seconds to Stage. The rapper Briggs in the seconds before going on stage at the Sydney Opera House. The building programmes contemporary music alongside opera and orchestral work.
2019-08-14 - Iggy Pop - "The Passenger" | Live at Sydney Opera House. Iggy Pop performs The Passenger at the Sydney Opera House. The venue programmes rock and electronic bills in the same halls used for orchestral seasons.
2019-11-27 - Solange - "Losing You" | Live at Sydney Opera House. Solange performs at the Sydney Opera House. The building's Vivid LIVE programme brings international contemporary artists into the Concert Hall.
2020-01-29 - Sydney Opera House to undergo $150 million overhaul | ABC News. ABC News reports a $150 million overhaul of the Concert Hall announced in 2020. The project addressed acoustics, accessibility and stage machinery.
2020-01-30 - Work begins to transform Concert Hall | Sydney Opera House. The Sydney Opera House documents the start of work to transform the Concert Hall in 2020. The hall was stripped back while the rest of the building continued operating.
2020-04-04 - BEETHOVEN - Symphony No. 9 | @sydneysymphony | Digital Season. The Sydney Symphony Orchestra performs Beethoven's Ninth in the Concert Hall. The orchestra has been resident in the building since it opened.
2020-05-29 - Badu Gili: Celebrating First Nations Culture | Digital Season. Badu Gili projects First Nations artwork onto the eastern sails of the Opera House each evening. The name means water light in the language of the Gadigal, on whose Country the building stands.
2020-06-02 - Nick Cave and Warren Ellis - "Push the Sky Away" | Live at Sydney Opera House. Nick Cave and Warren Ellis perform at the Sydney Opera House. Cave grew up in Warracknabeal in Victoria and formed the Birthday Party in Melbourne.
2020 - Shine Dome, Canberra. The Shine Dome in Canberra, built for the Australian Academy of Science and opened in 1959. Roy Grounds designed the copper sheathed dome, which local nicknames compared to an upturned bowl.
2020-07-07 - 1989 Sydney Opera House, Sydney Harbour Bridge, 35mm. Footage of the completed Sydney Opera House and the Harbour Bridge shot on 35mm in 1989. The two structures together became the standard image of the city.
2020-08-05 - Making of the Utzon tapestry, Homage to C.P.E. Bach. The making of the Utzon tapestry, Homage to C.P.E. Bach, designed by the architect and installed in the room named for him. Utzon designed it in 2004 without returning to Australia.
2020-08-07 - Mad Max: Creating the Apocalypse - In Conversation with George Miller | Digital Season. George Miller in conversation at the Sydney Opera House about making Mad Max. The building runs a substantial talks programme alongside its performance seasons.
2020-09-30 - Celebrating 140 years of a Melbourne Icon. Museums Victoria marks 140 years of the Royal Exhibition Building. It was built for the Melbourne International Exhibition of 1880.
2020-10-13 - Acoustics with Eddie Woo | Maths of the Sydney Opera House | Episode 1. The teacher Eddie Woo explains the acoustics of the Sydney Opera House. The spherical geometry that solved the roof also shaped the volumes beneath it.
2020-11-10 - Wartime Stories from Melbourne's Exhibition Buildings: Dick Thompson. A wartime account of Melbourne's Exhibition Buildings, recorded by Museums Victoria. The halls served as a hospital and as military accommodation.
2020-11-28 - This builder's dad took over as the Opera House architect | Restoration Australia. Restoration Australia covers the architect who took over the Sydney Opera House after Utzon left. Peter Hall completed the interiors to a brief that departed substantially from Utzon's drawings.
2021-03-04 - Wartime Stories from Melbourne's Exhibition Buildings: Frank Walsh. A second wartime recollection of the Melbourne Exhibition Buildings collected by Museums Victoria.
2021-04-23 - Badu Gili: Wonder Women
2021-05-27 - Ziggy Ramo | "Little Things" feat. Paul Kelly. Ziggy Ramo performs Little Things with Paul Kelly at the Sydney Opera House. Ramo rewrote the Gurindji song with new verses about ongoing injustice.
2021-06-11 - 1960s Sydney Harbour, Sydney Opera House Under Construction, 8mm. Amateur 8mm footage of Sydney Harbour in the 1960s with the Opera House shells under construction. The roof was the part of the project that consumed the most time and money.
2021 - Shine Dome exterior. The Shine Dome at the Australian Academy of Science in Canberra. It was among the first buildings in the country given heritage protection for its modernism.
2021-06-26 - Indigenous Artist Light Projections At The Sydney Opera House | Art Works. ABC's Art Works covers First Nations light projections onto the Sydney Opera House. Bennelong Point is named after Woollarawarre Bennelong, a Wangal man taken by the colonists in 1789.
2021-07-05 - Concert Hall Renewal: In the midst of construction | Decade of Renewal. Construction inside the Concert Hall during the renewal. Acoustic reflectors, new seating and a revised stage were installed.
2021-09-01 - Kids tour and history behind Australia's most famous building, the Sydney Opera House. A tour of the building made for children by the Sydney Opera House. The roof is clad in over a million Swedish made tiles in two finishes, glossy and matt.
2021-11-22 - Introducing the Sydney Opera House's newest venue, the Centre for Creativity | Decade of Renewal. The Sydney Opera House introduces its Centre for Creativity, a venue created within the building during the renewal programme.
2021-11-23 - Sydney Opera House has new interactive performance space | ABC News. ABC News covers a new interactive performance space at the Sydney Opera House. The building has added venues inside its existing envelope rather than extending outward.
2022-05-06 - Sydney Opera House upgrade nears completion on the dawn of it's 50th anniversary | ABC News. ABC News reports the upgrade nearing completion before the fiftieth anniversary. The Concert Hall works ran from 2020 to 2022.
2022 - First concert after the renewal. The Sydney Symphony Orchestra playing in the Concert Hall on 20 July 2022, at the first performances after the acoustic renewal.
2022-07-14 - First look inside Sydney Opera House's concert hall after multi-million-dollar renovation | ABC News. ABC News films the first look inside the renewed Concert Hall in 2022. The original hall had long drawn criticism for its acoustics.
2022-09-07 - Edo de Waart on the Sydney Opera House, Concert Hall Renewal. The conductor Edo de Waart discusses the Concert Hall renewal. He was chief conductor of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, the hall's resident ensemble.
2022-09-12 - Queen Elizabeth II Opens Sydney Opera House 20th October, 1973. National Film and Sound Archive footage of Queen Elizabeth the Second opening the Sydney Opera House on 20 October 1973. Work had begun in 1959 and the building opened fourteen years later, ten years behind the original schedule.
2022-11-03 - Backstage with the Bangarra dance crew | Inside the Sydney Opera House | ABCTV + ABC iview. Backstage with the Bangarra dance crew inside the Sydney Opera House, filmed by ABC. The company is Australia's leading First Nations dance theatre.
2022-11-04 - Sydney Opera House backstage tour | Inside the Sydney Opera House | ABC TV + ABC iview. A backstage tour of the Sydney Opera House. Below the shells the building contains rehearsal rooms, workshops and scenery docks not visible from the harbour.
2023-02-16 - Who are the faces in the dome at the Royal Exhibition Building in Melbourne?. Museums Victoria examines the painted faces in the dome of the Royal Exhibition Building. The building housed the opening of the first federal parliament in 1901.
2023 - Joan Sutherland Theatre. The Joan Sutherland Theatre, renamed in 2012 for the Sydney born soprano. It is the Sydney home of Opera Australia and the Australian Ballet and is known for its unusually cramped orchestra pit.
2023 - Bennelong Point parking station. The parking station serving the Opera House, bored into the rock beneath the Royal Botanic Garden. It was built long after the building itself, which opened with almost no parking provision.
2023 - Brisbane Concert Hall interior. Inside the Brisbane Concert Hall at the Queensland Performing Arts Centre. Every Australian capital built a major performing arts centre in the decades after the Sydney Opera House opened.
2023-08-12 - Sydney Opera House celebrates 50 years as one of the 20th century's great buildings | ABC News. ABC News reports the fiftieth anniversary of the opening. Utzon resigned on 28 February 1966 after a dispute with the New South Wales government over fees and control, and he never returned to Australia before his death in 2008.
2023-10-18 - The Sydney Opera House's 50 years | 7.30. ABC's 7.30 marks fifty years of the Sydney Opera House in 2023. The building was inscribed on the World Heritage List in 2007, one of the few modern works listed in the lifetime of its architect.
2024 - Ticket to the first Concert Hall performance. A ticket to the first performance in the Concert Hall. The building opened to the public in 1973 after fourteen years of construction and a cost overrun measured in multiples of the original estimate.
2024-11-04 - A New Stage: Bangarra moves to the Joan Sutherland Theatre. Bangarra Dance Theatre moves to the Joan Sutherland Theatre. The company had performed in the smaller Drama Theatre for years.
2025-04-03 - Glenn Murcutt: Unbuilt Works. The State Library of New South Wales presents the unbuilt works of Glenn Murcutt, the only Australian to have won the Pritzker Prize, awarded in 2002.
2025 - Concert Hall. The main Concert Hall, the largest venue in the building. Its acoustics were criticised for decades and a renewal project completed in 2022 installed new reflectors, seating and stage machinery.
2025-12-17 - Badu Gili: Story Keepers
2026-01-19 - Sydney Opera House solved its biggest problem. An account of the geometric problem the shells posed and the spherical solution that resolved it. Utzon's answer was to cut every shell from the surface of one sphere so that the ribs could be mass produced.