Sydney Opera House

In the late 50’s, Danish architect Joern Utzon won the prestigious Pritzker Prize (the equivalent of the Nobel in the architecture category) by the unique design of this building: the Sydney Opera House. The jury described it as “one of the most symbolic buildings of the twentieth century, a masterpiece, an image of great beauty… a symbol not only of a city, but of an entire country.”

His project had not been chosen among the five finalists (out of 233 that were submitted), but a well-known architect, Eero Saarinen, was on the jury for the Sydney Opera House commission and had seen the conceptual drawings of Utzon’s future Opera House. Curiously, its creator, Utzon left the project in 1966 by serious disagreements with the government of New South Wales and by the fierce complaints it received from the Australian population, who believed the building was too modernist and abstract. The original idea proved too expensive to implement, and had to be three Australian architects who complete the work in 1973, when it was opened with the opera War and Peace. Its original creator never returned to Australia to visit.

Utzon found it curious that Sydney in itself is an acknowledgment of modernist architecture, because this city can be described as the New York in the Southern Hemisphere, displayed by its skyscrapers, its modernity, its environment and its vitality.

Describing how the concept for the construction came about, he said the idea arose with an orange skin which opened its segments. The shell of an orange shaped their domes; in this web of Swedes tiles that form the roof of the building and that give this forceful contrast in the Sydney Harbour. A concrete base covered with granite, covered with white coating with ceramic tiles make up the rest of this unique monument. And that perfectly recognizable silhouette, like a boat with wind to the sails was deployed, which seems to vary depending on the point from where it is observed, and with the lights of the day and night, play with their volumes, with their facades, with its staircases and windows.

The Sydney Opera House is currently one of the most active travel destinations in the world. Inside it is home to several rooms dedicated to music, with a capacity for 2900 people, and a theatre, with 1547 seats.

Seven “New” Wonders of the World Nominee

The Sydney Opera House was nominated as a candidate for New Wonder of the World in 2007, alongside other world famous monuments like the Taj Mahal, the nabatea city of Petra, the Alhambra in Granada, the famous ruins of Stonehenge, the city of Timbouctú in Mali, the moais of Easter Island, the pyramids of Giza in Cairo, the Great Wall of China, Machu Picchu in Peru, the Acropolis of Athens, the Coliseum in Rome, the Statue of Liberty in New York, Eiffel Tower in Paris, St. Basil’s Cathedral in Moscow, Castle Neuchswastein in Germany, and St. Sophia in Istanbul.