Inside the Sydney Light Opera House
Welcome to the Sydney Light Opera House!!!
Ever wonder what the inside of the Sydney Light Opera House looks like? I happened to be curious myself so while on vacation in Sydney I decided to take a guided tour and see what this place was all about. I wasn't disappointed!
The Sydney Light Opera House is a multi-venue performing arts centre, making it the busiest performing arts centre in the world! The Opera House hosts over 1500 performances each year and is attend by approximately 1.2 million people! Some of the venues include the ballet, orchestra, theatre, and of course opera! As the Opera House is one of the more popular tourist attractions in Australia, more than seven million people visit each year, with 300,000 people taking the guided tour of the Opera House. And in April of 2012 I just happened to be one of those 300,000 people.
For myself the most interesting thing about the Opera House, aside from the design was the history of the Opera House and how it came to be. Planning began in the late 1940's, when the Director of the NSW Sate Conservatorium of Music, lobbied for an appropriate venue for large theatrical productions. On September 13th 1955, a design competition was launched, the requirements of the design was to have one main hall to fit 3000 people, and a smaller hall to fit 1200 people, each to be designed for different uses. 233 entries were submitted, representing architects from 32 countries
The winner was announced in 1957, it was Jørn Utzon, a Danish architect. His prize was £5,000.
Jørn Utzon's design was that of a modern expressionist design. Work began in 1958 with Utzon directing construction. The Opera House was built in three stages. The first stage was the podium, 1959-1963, the second stage was construction of the outer shells (the "sails" or "shells" of the building are precast concrete panels supported by precast concrete ribs) 1963-1967, and the third stage was interior design and construction, 1967-1973.
In 1973 the Opera House was complete, it cost $102 million to construct, the original quoted cost was $7 million, and estimated time of completion was January 26th 1963, Australia Day. This meant that the project was ten years late and more than fourteen times over budget!!!
Just a slight miscalculation...
Source: Wikipedia
