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When reaching the street side the whole plane folds to create a monumental staircase as wide as the building itself.

It was conceived to serve as a base for the upper deck, a completely horizontal plane which shape is only broken to give space to the stands of the two main auditoriums, one for opera, the other for concerts, and sporadically to allow the staircases from below to emerge to the surface. The first is actually the building itself and houses all the service areas, including dressing rooms, rehearsal areas, warehouses, offices and library.

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The building is made up by two very distinctive elements a solid base and a series of light, organically shaped roofs. When asked about the site Utzon said “…This was a dream project for an architect… first because the site is absolutely lovely with an amazing view, and second because the program wasn’t set in advance…” It’s located on the northeaster border of the Sydney Business District and surrounded by the harbor on three of its sides and the Royal Botanic Garden on the other. The Sydney Opera House is set on a small pensinsula at Bennlog Point, on the south side of the Sydney bay. The treatment of space as music hardly exists in today’s architecture…” As he said himself “If I had finished the building I would’ve taken it through a sense of movement.

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When he finally came back the Sydney Opera House was already an internationally renowned landmark and Utzon was asked to become the official architect once again and develop a set of design principles that reflected his original vision that could act as a sort of manual for future changes in the building.Įven though Utzon accepted it was clear that he wasn’t completely happy with the end result. He wasn’t even present at the inauguration ceremony in 1973. When Utzon was ceased payment and was forced to retire as chief architect he left Australia and never came back until 1999 when he saw the finished building for the first time. Utzon was then replaced by a group of architects selected by the minister of Public Works of New South Wales, including Ted Farmer, who was in charge of completing the glass walls and interiors. By mid-1965 a new government took over and started questioning Utzon’s design which was already delayed and way over its initial 3 million (Australian dollars) budget.

Despite the project being well advanced Utzon had not yet finalized the interior designs at that point. The prefabricated ribbed vaults started taking shape and the podium was finally completed in 1964.

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Even though his presentation was lacking in many areas and was little more than a few sketched it catch the eye of who was considered to be a very prominent judge, Eero Saarinen, so the project went through despite its lack of information and Joseph Cahill, prime minister at that time, quickly announced that the works would start in just two years.Īfter numerous tests, Utzon, together with the engineering firm Ove Arup, developed a full design based on the complex sections from a sphere. When Utzon presented his idea to the competition in 1957 he barely showed a few schematics explaining the concept behind his project. Overall there are more than 1000 rooms, most of them dedicated to music studios, with a capacity to host over 5000 people comfortably seated. The building is structured under a series of “shells” which give cover to several theater complexes organized on two main axis. By that time Utzon had been forced to abandon the project by a new government However the complexity of the engineering of the building delayed the works over and over until the project was finally completed 14 years later with a total cost of 102 million Australian dollars. The project was supposed to be completed in three years at a cost of 3 million Australian dollars. Utzon himself defined the building’s concept as a combination of “slices of oranges”. After winning the international competition to build the Sydney Opera House Jørn Utzon’s controversial project broke ground in 1959 at Bennelong Point.