Boy, was I wrong! It was an awesome tour, and had we known it was going to be so interesting, we probably would have sprung for the "behind the scenes" tour.
The Sydney Opera House was/is quite a controversial building...the design was picked out of the already discarded pile of an international design competition by a late arriving judge. Once crowned the winner, it was estimated to take 3 years and $7 million to complete even though they had no idea how to build it. It ended up taking 14 years at a cost of $102 million. Though he was removed from the project towards it's completion due to political pressure, Jorn Utzon is the credited architect and the man that combined a simple shape and concept to build what many at the time thought unbuildable. The shape that dramatically simplified the construction is the sphere. It's said Utzon had an ah ha moment peeling an orange for breakfast. The ah ha being that he could create these unique shapes in various sizes by merely making a wider/narrower and deeper/shorter cut into a sphere. The second challenge was to make these shells/sails/shark fins/colliding razorbacks/sonic the hedgehogs structurally sound. It's done by tension ... picture the collapsing giraffe toy, except the string through the giraffe is steel cables through concrete blocks.
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| Collapsing Giraffe ... stolen from mywoodentoys.com.au obviously. You can not choose your "colour" and order one here, go there. |
It has a very distinctive look to it, and whether you love it or hate it, it is truly iconic to Sydney.
FYI - If you happen to visit Sydney and want to attend a performance at the SOH, do better research than we did. Pre-trip we saw two shows on for the weekend, both sold out online. At the SOH, there were banners for at least ten shows (normal) and people in line at the box office.
After our wonderful Sydney Opera House tour, we headed to one of my favorite restaurants of all time - Din Tai Fung...a traditional chinese dumpling house...and we proceeded to eat ourselves into food comas - soup, veggies, fried rice and piles of soupy dumplings. A great end to a great day!
Heaps of pictures of the SOH:
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| Chris Ann between the wall of SOH inspiration and commencement plaque. |
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| The tiles on the exterior of the SOH. They are "self-washing", except that one time it didn't rain for 7 years. Less than 1% have had to replaced, the majority of those a result of theft during the 2000 Olympics. |
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| The tiled ground surrounding the SOH. I really want to believe they used large phillips head screwdrivers to install these. |
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| Windows recently added to the Drama Theatre foyer. In addition to nice views of the bridge, they show how thick the concrete structure is. |
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| This play was in progress while we were there. Our guide was adamant the name not be uttered, then the play broke for intermission and one of the actors was "Macbeth" this and "Macbeth" that. Our guide was not pleased. |
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| Window above the balcony on the harbor side angled intentionally to reflect the beauty of the harbor. Bob Ross thinks it might have been a happy accident. |
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| Foyer of the main performance hall. |
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| Upper level of main performance hall foyer. |
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| Main performance hall. You're not allowed to take pictures in here ... unless another tour group is already in there snapping pictures. I'm prepared if they come after us. |
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| A bunch of sound enhancing devices which appear to be more decorative than functional. Pretty sure they know what they're doing though. |
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| Utzon tapestry, designed and donated by Utzon in 2004 when the Aussie government decided to finally make right a wrong crediting him as the architect of the SOH. Utzon had returned to Denmark after being removed from the construction never to return until this dedication. |
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| LT performing in the Utzon Room |
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