Sydney Opera House, 20th century marvel, turns 50

It is as familiar all over the world as the Eiffel Tower in Paris for millions around the world through photographs and films. The Syndey Opera House design of Danish architect Jorn Utzon in 1959 was chosen from 233 designs in an international competition of 1956, and it took 114 years to complete because Utzon left midway due to differences with the authorities due to change in government.

Queen Elizabeth II opened it on October 20, 1973. It soon emerged to be the familiar landmark and was declared a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2007. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said in a post on X: “A symbol around the world and a national treasure turns 50. Happy Birthday to an Australian icon.”

Utzon left in a huff in 1966 and the structure was completed by Peter Hall, and the workmanship involved in putting together remains an amazing engineering feat. It is said that the inspiration for the Opera House came to Utzon from the Mayan and Aztec pyramidal temples in central America which he had visited in 1949, and he built the base of the building on the same principles as the old Meso-American structures. Utzon had however returned to Sydney in 2002 on the request of the New South Wales state government to prepare designs for its future, and he was honoured with a space of 200 + seats named after him in the Opera House.

Utzon is credited to have created classy public privies in Sydney. The final design is not what he had envisaged. The Opera House comprises an opera hall seating 1,507 people, and a concert hall with a 2,679-seat capacity. It is reckoned that about 11 million people visit the monument every year.

The intricate design and the construction devices used to keep the different parts of the famous cups or sails at the top of the building makes for a fascinating story in itself. And it is a truly international collaboration because many workmen from different countries were involved in its construction. The building can be said to be a strange admixture of the ancient world of pre-Columbus America and modern technology.

The ancient monuments of Egypt and central America have lasted thousands of years because they were mainly made of stone. And they survived despite neglect of thousands of years. It is a matter of speculation whether modern monuments like the Sydney Opera House could survive that long.

The upkeep of the Opera House is quite expensive. The Opera Hall was renovated at a cost of $300 million. And the Sydney tiles used in the gleaming white cups that mark the crown of the Opera House have been created in excess and stored in a Sydney warehouse to use them for replacement when the need arises. And there is the constant watch of the building from bees, from cats and sea lions sunning themselves on the open sides of the building, and a Sea Gull Squad of dogs to chase away birds.

The Sydney Opera House rightly symbolises the modern times with bold imagination and technical finesse weaving intricate design into a monument. And there is a delicacy in the architecture that would have been impossible earlier except in the design of mosques of medieval Islam and of Gothic churches in medieval Europe. There is something fragile about the structure of the Opera House which symbolises the modern civilisation. There is need for a lot of care to keep it. It is a reminder to humanity across the world that its imagination can soar to unprecedented heights, but it remains as vulnerable as Icarus of Greek mythology, whose wings melted as he reached out to the heavens.