When did construction of the Sydney Opera House begin?

March 2, 1959
How long did it take to build Sydney Opera House?
Construction was expected to take four years. It took 14 years. Work commenced
in 1959 and involved 10,000 construction workers.

The three main building that inhabit the podium are the concert hall, the opera house and
the restaurant, however there whole complex counts with five theaters, five rehearsal
studios, two main rooms, four restaurants, six bars and numerous gift shots.

The five theaters have the following characteristics:

 The Concert Hall has 2679 seats and has the world’s largest mechanic organ with over
10.000 tubes.
 The Opera House has 1547 seats and is the home to both the Australian opera and the
Australian ballet company.
 The Drama Theater with capacity for 544 spectators.
 The Music Room with capacity for 398 spectators.
 The Studio Theater with capacity for 364 spectators.

Method of Construction
Structure and Building Envelope
These shells cover the three main spaces, the opera theater, the concert theater and the
restaurant. Each of these spaces is covered by four pairs of shells, except for the restaurant
which only has two pair.

 Roof Shells

The curved roof shell is made up of 2194 prefabricated concrete pieces (precast cement). These
segments were individually shaped to fit the complex curves of the design and shells are often referred
to as "sails" due to their distinctive shape, resembling billowing sails on a ship.

Precast Concrete Shell

The main shells (green) ribs’ cross-section varies from a solid “T” shape at the pedestal
to a “Y” shaped section to lighten the structure. Each rib is built with 4.6 meter long
prefabricated elements joined with epoxy resin and prestressing tendons

, to which the construction company Hornibrook contributed decisively. They also had
the idea of using adjustable steel arches to support the ribs through the construction
process, avoiding the need to have a whole formwork underneath them.

Main dimensions:

– Height of the largest shell from its springing point: 54.6 m.

– Length of the largest hall: 121 m, measured between the ends of the shells.

– Widths of the main shells: between 22 and 57 m.

 Roof Tiles

The exterior of the shells is covered with more than a million white and cream-colored ceramic
tiles, which not only provide an aesthetically pleasing appearance but also help protect the concrete
from weathering and staining.

Utzon wanted the shells to contrast with the deep blue of Sydney Harbour and the
clear blue of the Australian sky. The tiles needed to be gloss but not be so mirror-
like to cause glare. Utzon found exactly what he wanted in Japan; ceramic bowls
with a subtle coarseness caused by a granular texture in the clay.

The 4228 tile chevrons required to cover the shells were produced in a factory set
up under the Monumental Steps. Tiles were placed face down in one of 26 chevron
shaped beds each with a base shaped to match the curve of the roof. In total,
there are 1,056,006 tiles on the roof. the tiles “were a major item in the building. It
is important that such a large, white sculpture in the harbour setting catches and
mirrors the sky with all its varied lights dawn to dusk, day to day, throughout the
year.

Working together, they created 12 trial schemes before landing on a spherical solution consisting of ten
roof sails built from segments of the same sphere, 75 metres in diameter. Each sail is made from pre-cast
concrete supported by concrete ribs. The simplicity of this solution enabled the ribs to be mass produced
on site and then lifted into place, offering design coherence and economies of scale.

1,056,006ceramic tiles cover the Opera House roof

12trial schemes for the iconic sail design
1957the start of our work on the Opera House
 Glass Elements

The exact specifications and types of glass used in the Sydney Opera House may vary depending
on the specific application, location within the building. The following are the glass types that
applied in the building.

Glass
Choosing the right glass for the walls was a very important step. Safety was a must but the glass
also needed to be cut on site, so tempered glass was discarded and instead replaced with
laminated glass. Because there was so little information about laminated glass back in the day a
whole series of test had to be done to ensure that the glass would meet all the requirements
and expectations.
In the end the glass chosen was made up by a 12mm layer of transparent glass and a 6mm layer
of polarized glass in bronze tones glued together by a 0,76mm layer of clear polyvinyl butyral.
The color was chosen in order to avoid the greenish shade that two layer of transparent glass
would’ve created and had the added bonus of providing a much needed sun protection,
especially on the highly exposed north facades. The largest sheet of glass required for the
project was 4×2.1 meters.
 1. Float Glass
A standard clear glass that is often used for windows and exterior glazing. It provides
transparency and allows natural light to enter the building.

Float glass is essentially a super smooth, distortion-free glass which is used for designing other
glass items such as laminated glass, heat-toughened glass, and so on. With a natural greenish
hue and translucent nature, it is capable of transmitting of the incident light, and unlike sheet
glass, float glass provides users with a crystal-clear view. Float glass owes its unique name to the
process by which it is manufactured wherein the molten glass is introduced into a bath of
molten tin, causing the glass to float freely.
Today, float glass is the most widely used form of glass in consumer products. Due to both its
high quality with no additional polishing required and its structural flexibility during production,
it can easily be shaped and bent into a variety of forms while in a heated, syrupy state.
2. Low-E (Low-Emissivity) Glass
Low-E glass is a coated with a thin, virtually invisible layer of metal oxide that helps control
heat transfer. It reflects heat back into the building during cold weather and reduces heat gain
from the sun during hot weather. This type of glass can improve energy efficiency.

Low-E (Low-Emissivity) glass is a type of coated glass designed to minimize the amount of heat
and ultraviolet (UV) radiation that passes through it while allowing visible light to pass through.
It’s often used in energy-efficient building designs to improve insulation and reduce the
building’s energy consumption.
 3. Tinted or Reflective Glass

The uprights that give strength to the glass walls were made from steel.
This material was finally chosen because of its stiffness and strength.

The uprights were custom made by welding together two tubes of 90mm
diameter each and a 6mm lattice plate. The resulting geometry had the
advantage of allowing standard connecting pieces to be used along its full
length and in any possible orientation.

4. Laminated Glass
Laminated glass consists of two or more layers of glass bonded together with a layer of
plastic (usually polyvinyl butyral or PVB) in between. It provides safety and security benefits as it
holds together when shattered, preventing glass shards from scattering.

Laminated glass is commonly used in windows of commercial and public buildings because
it offers several advantages. In the event of an impact, the glass tends to stay in place, held
together by the interlayer, reducing the risk of injury from broken glass. This is especially
important for a public venue like the Sydney Opera House.

Laminated glass is a composite glass product sandwiched between two or

more pieces of glass sandwiched between organic polymer interlayer, after
special high temperature preloading (or vacuum pumping) and high
temperature and high pressure process, so that glass and intermediate film
permanently adhere together. As a safety glass, the biggest advantage of
laminated glass is that after the impact and crush of glass, due to the bonding
effect of PVB film sandwiched between two ordinary glass, it will not hurt
people after breaking the ordinary glass.

In addition, laminated glass has excellent seismic intrusion ability, which can
resist the attack of continuous film hammer, chopping knives and other
weapons, but also in quite a long time to resist bullet penetration. In Europe
and America, most of the building glass is made of laminated glass.

According to statistics, Sydney Opera House has a share of 6625 square

meters of glass, with more than 250 thousand high - hardness glass blocks.
The glass is distributed inside and outside the opera house. The interior
architecture imitated the Maya culture and the Aztec Temple, using the
imported glass inlay, with the unique material of Australia, which is noble and
practical. The external surface of the glass building is a French manufacturer
of special double glass - plain and topaz, a total of 700 sizes, 2000 tablets.
Laminated glass was chosen for its toughness and ability to be shaped on
site, yet little was known about its use for architectural design.

5. Tempered Glass
Tempered glass is heat-treated to increase its strength and shatter resistance. It is often
used in areas where safety is a concern, such as glass balustrades or doors.

Tempered glass may be used for windows and exterior glazing to provide safety and security
while allowing natural light to enter the building.

Tempered glass is a type of safety glass that is heat-treated to increase its strength and
resistance to breakage. It undergoes a thermal tempering process that involves heating the glass
to a high temperature and then rapidly cooling it. This process creates surface compression,
which gives tempered glass its characteristic strength.

In architectural applications, tempered glass is commonly used for its safety features. When
tempered glass does break, it shatters into small, relatively harmless fragments rather than large,
sharp shards. This reduces the risk of injury in case of breakage.
 6. Acoustic Glass
Acoustic glass is designed to reduce noise transmission. It is used in areas where sound
insulation is important, such as concert halls or performance spaces within the Sydney Opera
House.

The Sydney Opera House features world-class acoustic design within its various performance
spaces, including the Concert Hall and the Joan Sutherland Theatre. These designs take into
account factors such as sound reflection, absorption, and diffusion to ensure that the music and
performances are of the highest quality.

In the Concert Hall and other performance spaces, specialized glass panels are used to contribute to
the venue’s unique acoustic properties. These glass surfaces are carefully designed to reflect, absorb,
or diffuse sound to achieve optimal acoustics.

These glass elements not only add to the architectural beauty of the Sydney Opera House but also play
a crucial role in creating a comfortable and functional environment for both visitors and performers.

Materials
The structure of the building is made from reinforced concrete and the
facades from polarized glass with steel frames.

The shells are covered by white and cream mate tiles made in Sweden,
although from a distance they all look white to the eye.
In the interiors the predominant materials are pink granite brought from
Tarana and plywood from New South Wales.

Technical Details

 The building is 183 meters long and 120 meters wide.

 The roof is made up by 2194 prefabricated concrete pieces.
 Some of those pieces weight up to 15 tones.
 Keeping those pieces together are 350 kilometers of steel wire.
 Over one million tiles were needed to cover the roof shells.
 All the glass walls together have an area of 6225 m2.
 Inside the building 645 kilometers of electrical wire were used.

Glass facades

Peter Hall, from Hall, Todd & Littlemore was put in charge of coming up
with a solution for the glass walls in 1967. It was clear that the initial
wooden frames would not do the job and that they should be replaced for
steel instead. These however brought a whole new set of challenges in
order to ensure the durability of the frames, especially on the outside, as
they were going to be exposed to a highly corrosive seaside atmosphere .
He even experimented with concrete but the aesthetics of this solution
were unacceptable.

When Utzon drafted his proposal for the competition he had a very clear
idea of what he wanted for his design. A base building with three main
buildings on top, one for each theater and a third, smaller one for the
restaurant, all of them covered by layers of concrete shaped as the
segments of an orange. He didn’t pay much attention to lightning as he
assumed that all shows would happened at night when it was already
dark, so he decided that the privileged views both to the bay and the city
should be highlighted by making all vertical walls out of glass. Utzon had
never visited Australia when he came up with this concept and when he
finally did he started changing the arrangements of these glass walls
continuously. Unfortunately he didn’t have final plans for them one he left
the project so we would never know what those might have looked like if
he had been around until the end.
He did however he did leave a clear idea of what he had in mind which he
summarized in the following points.

 All glass walls should look as they belong to the same family, with a similar
structural design
 The structure must be as minimal as possible. Frames should be reduced to a
minimum and even removed when possible.
 The frames should never act as a support for the shells. The glass walls should
appear as if they were hanging from the shells.

Making the glass walls appear as if they were hanging from the shells was
the key challenge to solve. Because of the different geometries between
the base building and the shells the window uprights had to be bend
towards the outside in order to get a usable bottom edge.

The two walls facing the bay were by far the most complex. In those
spaces the glass walls are a combination of several geometrical shapes, a
cylinder and two cones to be precise, all of them aligned on the same
vertical axis. Starting from the top the wall has the shape of a cylinder,
halfway down it crosses with a tilted cone which then crosses with yet
another cone towards the bottom.

Opera House Building Envelope

The Sydney Opera House's distinctive building envelope consists of a series of white shell-like
structures made of precast concrete panels. These shells, often likened to sails billowing in the wind,
are the defining architectural feature of the Opera House. Danish architect Jørn Utzon designed the
building, and its construction was completed in 1973.

The shells are composed of more than one million tiles that were imported from Sweden and affixed
to the concrete panels to create the iconic white, gleaming appearance. The complex geometry of the
shells presented significant engineering challenges during construction.
The Sydney Opera House's building envelope is not only an architectural masterpiece but also serves
functional purposes, protecting the interior spaces from the elements while allowing for the diffusion
of natural light.

 Methods of Construction

The Construction method that used in the Sydney Opera House was constructed using a
method called the "shell construction" or "shell vault" technique. This technique is typically
applied in architectural and structural engineering projects where a unique, curved, or organic
shape is desired for the building or structure.

 Ribbed Structure

Each of the shells is made of pre-cast concrete rib segments rising to a ridge beam, held
together by 350 km of tensioned steel cable. Geometrically, each half of each shell is a segment
of a sphere; however, the 'sails' were originally designed as parabolas, for which an engineering
solution could not be found.
Although described as reinforced-concrete shells, they are in fact a series of concrete
ribs that support a total of 2,194 precast-concrete roof panels which are in turn clad with over 1
million tiles. The tile surface is highly detailed and uses two types of tile - one glossy white, one
matte cream - with clearly expressed joints.

The interior of each shell is supported by a complex network of rib-like structures that
provide stability and strength. These ribs are made of reinforced concrete and segment
connections as joints, anchors, or dowels, to ensure they can be securely attached to each
other and other structural elements, it has also a keystone a central, wedge-shaped stone or
other structural element that is typically placed at the apex that give the shells their iconic
curved and organic appearance.

Exterior View
 Interior View

Apart from the tile of the shells and the glass curtain walls of the foyer
spaces, the buildings exterior is largely clad with aggregate panels
composed of pink granite quarried at Tarana. Significant interior surface
treatments also include off-form concrete, Australian white birch plywood
supplied from Wauchope in northern New South Wales, and brush box glulam.

 Interlocking

The segments were interlocked and held together using a system of high-tensile steel tendons
and epoxy resin, a steel wire also used to keep those pieces together. This created a unified shell
structure.
Historic photograph of the chevron shaped tiles being placed on the Opera House roof.
Historic photograph of the Sydney Opera House during construction.

Constructed between 1959 and 1973, the Opera House was built in three
stages: Stage I (1959-1963) consisted of building the upper podium; Stage II
(1963-1967) the construction of the outer shells; Stage III (1967-1973) interior
design and construction. Today, the Sydney Opera House stands out with its
distinctive roof set in the remarkable waterscape of the Sydney Harbour.
Known for his radical approach, Utzon envisioned a design solution of
interlocking vaulted “shells,” each of which is composed of pre-cast rib
segments rising from a concrete pedestal to the ridge beam. The construction
of these shells took eight years to complete and the development of a special
ceramic tile for the shells took over three years.
Stage I (1959-1963) consisted of building the upper podium.
Stage One of construction of the Sydney Opera House rendered at the time the largest concrete
structure in the Southern Hemisphere.
One of the most remarkable features of the Podium, and one Utzon was most happy with, was
the concourse beams, designed by engineer Ove Arup. Utzon referred to them as “Ove’s
invention”.
Utzon's submission sketches suggested that the Concourse area under the Monumental Steps
would require some form of colonnade to support the weight of the structure above. When Arup
saw this detail, he dismissed the need for the columns, describing instead the undulating shape
of the now famous Concourse beams.
The beams, in their final design, so successfully dispersed moments of stress that no additional
vertical support was necessary. They provide a beautiful and dramatic sweeping form to the
underside of the Monumental Steps, which continue up through the levels of entrance finishing
just under the beginning of the vaulted arches.
Stage One would take five years to complete, closing on the original estimate of time for the
Opera House project as a whole. Even then it would require substantial modification to
withstand the final designs for the roof.

Stage II (1963-1967) saw the construction of the outer shells.

Stage III (1967-1973) consisted of the interior design and construction.
Building the Sydney Opera House
Construction on the Sydney Opera House began on March 2nd, 1959. The project was
divided into three stages; stage I (1959-1963) consisted of building the upper podium,
stage II (1963-1967) consisted of building the outer shells, and stage III (1967-1973)
consisted of the interior design and construction.

Stage I – Podium
Before the construction of The Opera House began, the site had to be cleared and
prepped using some of the most recognizable and effective heavy equipment: rock
trucks. While they were working on clearing the site and building stage one, the
engineers encountered a major obstacle: the ground had not been properly surveyed
before construction began. They discovered that the weight of the intended structure
would not be suitable for the land as the ground was made up of loose soil deposits,
rather than sandstone, which was their initial assumption. To accommodate these
different site conditions, about 700 steel-cased concrete shafts, nearly 1 meter each in
diameter, were tunneled down by excavators into the perimeter and northern half of
the site to create a solid foundation they could build upon. In the central area of the
site, mass concrete foundations filled in the unstable rock.
A second major issue faced by the engineers of this project was the roof. At this point
in the project, the weight of the roof was still unknown – leaving the load the anchor
points of the roof had to bear, a giant question mark. It was later determined that the
podium columns were not strong enough to support the roof structure and they had to
be re-built.

Stage II – Roof

There was much debate around how to construct the shells that were designed to be a
series of parabolas supported by precast-concrete ribs. Before finally finding a
workable solution to constructing these shells, at least 12 iterations of the form of the
shells were tested by the design team to finally have a successful outcome. To gain a
better understanding of the complex forces to which the shells would be subjected, the
design team used computers, which is noted as one of the earliest uses of computers in
structural analysis.
To build the roof, the contractors manufactured 2,400 precast ribs, 4,000 roof panels
in an on-site factory, and developed the construction processes. The construction of
the shells used an innovative adjustable steel-trussed arch to support the different
roofs before completion.

Stage III – Interiors

During the second stage of construction, Utzon resigned from the project and his role
was principally taken over by Peter Hall, who became largely responsible for the
interior design of the project. A few changes were made to the design after Utzon
resigned. Firstly, the podium was originally intended to be left open, rather than
mealled down. However, changes were made to the podium and the paving was added
to ensure it was secure. Secondly, the glass walls were originally intended to be
constructed using a system of prefabricated plywood mullions, but a different system
was designed to deal with the glass. Furthermore, the major hall which was intended
to be a multipurpose opera and concert hall became solely a concert hall. The minor
hall, originally for stage purposes only, now included the use of an opera hall.
Additionally, two more theaters were added to the design. Finally, Utzon’s original
vision to include plywood corridor designs, and his acoustic and seating designs, were
completely scrapped from the project.