Interesting facts about Sydney Opera House

Sydney Opera House

 

 

1.     The Sydney Opera House is located at Bennelong Point in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.

2.     It is one of the world’s busiest performing art centres.

3.     The design of the Sydney Opera House was inspired by nature, its forms, functions and colours.

4.     Construction of the building commenced in March 1959 and proceeded with slow and completed in 1973.

5.     The Opera House is a multipurpose performing arts facility whose largest venue.

6.     This places is used to host symphony concerts, choir performances, and popular music shows.

7.     The House is well known popular film-screening venue in Australia.

8.     The house has capacity about 2,679-seats in Concert Hall.

9.     Sydney Opera House is one of the most distinctive and famous 20th-century buildings.

10.     Sydney Opera House is considered as one of the most famous performing arts venues in the world.

11.     Millions of people visiting Opera House every year for experincing the architecture styles and for various events.

12.     Sydney Opera House is the inspiration for Architecture.

13.     The Sydney Opera house was opened by Queen Elizabeth II on 20 October 1973.

14.     The first performance after its opening cerony was the Australian Opera’s production of War and Peace.

15.     The estimation was to build Sydney Opera House about $AUS 7 million. But it actually too $AUS 102 million.

16.     The Sydney Opera House building is 185 metres long and 120 metres wide.

17.     The Sydney Opera House has about 1000 rooms.

18.     The roofs of the House are constructed of 1,056,000 glazed white granite tiles, which was imported from Sweden.

19.     The House initiative hopes to generate $15 million towards the House’s ”decade of renewal”, and launches weeks after its 40th birthday in 2013.

20.     The building meets multiple performance venues which together host well over 1,500 performances annually.

21.     The Sydney Opera House building is managed by the Sydney Opera House Trust, an agency of the New South Wales State Government.

22.     The House became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2007 as Cultural Site.

23.     The building with a series of large precast concrete “Shells”, each composed with sphere of 75.2 metres radius.

24.     The building covers 1.8 hectares (4.4 acres) of land.

25.     It is supported by 588 concrete piers sunk as much as 25 m below sea level.

25.     The building was composed with pattern of 1,056,006 tiles.

27.     The tiles were manufactured specially by the Swedish company.

28.     The design was one of the first examples using computer-aided design to design complex shapes.

29.     Every year 15,500 lightbulbs are changed at the Opera House.

30.     Grand Organ from the Concert Hall is the largest mechanical version of this instrument in the world with 10,154 pipes. It took 10 years to build.

31.     The Sydeny Opera House was a focal point during the Olympics 2000.

32.     UNESCO Praised the opera house as “great urban sculpture set in a remarkable waterscape, at the tip of a peninsula projecting into Sydney Harbour.”

33.     Mr Olympia body building event happened in the Concert Hall in 1980, Arnold Schwarzenegger won the title.

34.     The building is open to the public in all the days(363 days) except Christmas Day and Good Friday. But staff work 24/7, 365 days of the year.

35.     Work started on it in 1959, with 10,000 builders employed.

36.     The building has 6,225 square metres of glass and 645 kilometres of electric cable

37.     The glass used in the building is unique to the Sydney Opera House, and was made to order in France.

38.     Its roof is made of 2,194 pre-cast concrete sections.

39.     The opera house architectural style is Expressionist Modernism – which involves innovative form and use of novel materials.

40.     The entire site covers an area of 5.798 hectares.

Halls and Theaters :

1.     The opera house contains five theaters, five rehearsal studios, two main halls, four restaurants, six bars and numerous souvenir shops.

2.     Five theaters are Concert Hall, Joan Sutherland Theatre, Drama Theatre, Playhouse, Utzon Room.

3.     Largest hall is Concert Hall With 2,679 seats.

4.     Joan Sutherland Theatre is a proscenium theatre with 1,507 seats.

5.     Drama Theatre is a proscenium theatre with 544 seats.

6.     Playhouse is a theatre with 400 seats.

7.     Studio which is very flexible with 280 seats.

8.     Utzon Room is small multi-purpose venue for parties and for various events.

 

Concert Hall - Sydney Opera House

 

 

Opera House Roof :

1.     There are 6,233 square metres of topaz coloured glass used in the construction of the building.

2.     The glass was made by Boussois-Souchon-Neuvesel in France. This shade used only by the Sydney Opera House.

3.     The sails are covered with imported 1,056,006 roof tiles.

4.     The sails sit on a heavy podium, it is believed that it is the biggest pillar in the world.

Sydney Opera House Roof
Opera House Roof

Architect Jorn Utzon :

1.     Jorn Utzon is a Danish architect designed the Sydney Opera House.

2.     Utzon was influenced in his designs by bird wings, the shape and form of clouds, shells, walnuts and palm trees.

3.     Jorn Utzon was announced as the winner of international competition to design a ‘national opera house’ for Sydney’s Bennelong Point.

4.     Utzon left the project on 28 February 1966, After resign her was offfered to play a role as “design architect”, He rejected that too. Utzon left the country never to return after that.

5.     Utzon Room is small multi-purpose, The room was named to praise the great architect Utzon.

6.     Utzon died in 2008.

jornutzon - Sydney Opera House
Jornutzon

Awards for Sydney Opera House:

The house holds some prestigious awards as part of its architectural design.
1.     RAIA Merit Award
2.     RAIA Civic Design Award
3.     RAIA Commemorative Award
4.     Meritorious Lighting Award.

 

 

The sun did not know how beautiful its light was until it was reflected off this building.Famous American architect Louis Kahn

 

References : [1], [2], [3], [4]

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