Sydney Opera House Roof Design

Sydney opera house opera house located on port jackson sydney harbour new south wales australia.

Sydney opera house roof design.

They were made in sweden. The impressive and subtle chevron pattern has glossy white matte cream coloured tiles manufactured by höganäs ab. The sydney opera house on the shores of sydney harbor in australia is a third. From 1957 to 1963 the design team went through at least 12 iterations of the form of the shells trying to find an economically acceptable form including schemes with parabolas circular ribs and ellipsoids before a workable solution was completed.

The glazed ceramic tiles of the sydney opera house. Between 1958 and 1962 the roof design for the sydney opera house evolved through various iterations as utzon and his team pursued parabolic ellipsoid and finally spherical geometry to derive the final form of the shells. Sydney opera house was added to unesco s world heritage list in 2007 there are more than 1 million roof tiles covering approximately 1 62 hectares sitting over the structure. The sydney opera house was designed by danish architect jørn utzon after his design won a competition in 1957.

Seven a380s could sit wing to wing on the site. The roof of the sydney opera house has a whopping 1 056 000 glazed white granite tiles that have been imported from sweden. As construction of the podium began in sydney jørn utzon and his team of architects back in hallebaek explored how to build the opera house s shell shaped roof. This highly controversial project at the time came to define australia.

The sydney opera house is a modern expressionist design with a series of large precast concrete shells each composed of sections of a sphere forming the roofs of the structure set on a monumental podium. Its soaring roofs are meant to evoke the sails of the ships that brought many of australia s original settlers to. Its unique use of a series of gleaming white sail shaped shells as its roof structure makes it one of the most photographed buildings in the world. The design of the opera house was the subject of an international architectural competition which drew over 200 entries and excited the interest of architects throughout the world because of the magnificent possibilities presented by the site and its relationship to the city of sydney and its harbour.

Our founder ove arup was involved in the original design which began in the 1950s and we continue to play a pivotal role in the building s long term development and preservation plan. The architect of sydney opera house jørn utzon was a relatively unknown 38 year old dane in january 1957 when his entry was announced winner of the international competition to design a national opera house for sydney s bennelong point. Sydney opera house was opened by queen elizabeth ii on 20th october 1973.