Sydney Opera House: Concept, Innovation and Renewal

Welcome to the Sydney Opera House symposium. Arrive before the session starts for a coffee or tea and mingle with colleagues in the Utzon Room.

8.30am
Utzon Room opens

8.30 - 9am
Ticket holder arrival

9am
Symposium commences

The day will commence with a welcome by Louise Herron, Sydney Opera House (SOH) CEO. Convenors, architects and members of the SOH Design Advisory Panel Ken Maher AO and Peter Mould, will introduce the themes of the symposium – concept, innovation and renewal, and what we can expect from a fruitful day of talks and panel discussions. Our first speaker is Dr Penny Stannard, A/Director of Collections, Museums of History NSW, will contextualise the Opera House’s inception in the context of Sydney’s post-war political landscape across arts and policy between the 1950s and 70s. 

9am
Welcome to Country
Savannah Fynn, Metropolitan Local Aboriginal Land Council

9.10am
Welcome from Sydney Opera House
Louise Herron
CEO, Sydney Opera House (SOH)

9.15am
Sydney Opera House: Concept, Innovation, Renewal: An Introduction
Ken Maher, AO, Peter Mould
SOH Sydney Design Advisory Panel Members (DAP)

9.25am
Emergence of an idea: an opera house, Sydney, and post-war Australia

Dr Penny Stannard,

Head of Curatorial & Research, Museum of History NSW

On 13 September 1955 the NSW Government announced an international competition for the design of a national opera house at Bennelong Point, Sydney. In the years leading up to the announcement post-war reconstruction efforts, cultural policy directions and influential voices from Australia’s political, artistic, and academic elite coalesced to form a shared ambition for an opera house that would be comparable – even unrivalled – with any in the world. This paper discusses the Sydney Opera House story in the decade prior to the awarding of the commission to Jørn Utzon. Lesser known than accounts of the design, construction and opening of ‘The House’ in 1973, the cultural, social, and political forces that combined to progress the idea of an opera house from the imagination of a few to the public at large, was truly remarkable.

Take a deep dive into the roles of Jørn Utzon, Ove Arup and Peter Hall in the conception and realisation of the Sydney Opera House, recognising their contribution to the creation of the now UNESCO World Heritage listed site.  

Architect Richard Johnson AO (JPW Architects) will speak about Jørn Utzon’s vision, methodology and re-engagement in the late 1990s. We will hear from Tristam Carfare (Arup, London) as he unpacks Ove Arup’s concept of ‘total architecture’. Finishing off session one, will be Dr Anne Watson (independent researcher and curator) who will speak about Peter Hall’s design philosophy in the completion of the interiors of the Opera House.

9.45am
Concept: An Introduction

Abbie Galvin
NSW Government Architect, SOH DAP

9.50am
Jørn Utzon: Sydney Opera House concept and realisation
Richard Johnson, AO

JPW Architects

This short talk will attempt to outline the significance of the Sydney Opera House, its role in the cultural life of the city and reflect upon ideas, inspiration and design principles central to Utzon’s architecture and way of working.

It will illustrate an approach to design with a fundamental focus on human experience and inspiration drawn from a deep observation of nature.

Utzon’s theory of additive architecture creating a rhythm of elements inspired by nature and enabling prefabrication, his understanding of materials and craft and the concept of integration of all building elements into a harmonic unity of form and experience will be briefly examined.

10.10am
Ove Arup: Collaborative engineering design
Tristram Carfare
Arup

When Ove Arup first learned about Jørn Utzon’s imaginative, lyrical concept for a new Opera House in Sydney, he immediately offered to help.

He had established his firm of consulting engineers, Ove Arup & Partners (now simply Arup) in London, specifically to help modernist architects realise their ideas. His partner Ronald Jenkins was world renowned for the design of thin concrete shells, so an Utzon-Arup collaboration appeared to be perfect, and so, after many twists and turns, it proved to be.

Working intimately together the two Danes wrestled with integrating the beautiful but irrational initial geometry into a constructable building. This was finally resolved by Jørn’s decision to use a spherical geometry that unlocked the engineering and construction of this world icon.

The design of the Sydney Opera House can be seen as the prototypical architect + engineer collaboration, what Renzo Piano later referred to as “playing ping pong”, bouncing ideas backwards and forwards until an integrated whole emerges.

10.30am
"What were we supposed to build?" Peter Hall's conceptual conundrum
Dr Anne Watson
Independent Researcher and curator

When Peter Hall (1931-1995) accepted the invitation to complete the Sydney Opera House after Jørn Utzon’s withdrawal in early 1966, he inherited a logjam of problems including the unresolved designs of the two main auditoria and the building’s enclosing glass walls. Evolving a conceptual approach that tied innovation to function, he drew on the precedent of the building itself, Utzon’s ideas and designs, his own creativity and the contribution of technical experts.

This presentation will focus on Hall’s innovative use of moulded plywood throughout the Opera House interiors, his selection of bold colour schemes reflecting the lively spirit of the times, the visionary commissioning of artworks, and his pioneering collaboration with internationally-renowned lighting specialists. His legacy today is a performing arts centre that is beloved by visitors and performers and that aesthetically, functionally and experientially pays homage to the building’s spectacular exterior.

10.50am
Morning break
Catering in the Utzon Room

Gain new insights on the innovation of the SOH through recent research by leaders in architecture, construction and engineering.  

Professor Phillip Goad (University of Melbourne) will examine the design competition and Utzon’s unique entry, provoking the idea of what else the Sydney Opera House could have been.

Tristam Carfare (Arup) will share research on the role of innovation in engineering, and Professor Paolo Tombesi (École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne) will share new research on how the Opera House shells were built.

The session will conclude with the first panel of the day.  

11.15am
Innovation: An Introduction
Prof. Helen Lochhead
UNSW Sydney, SOH DAP

11.20am
Competition in context: Innovation, modern architecture and the Sydney Opera House
Prof. Phillip Goad
University of Melbourne (UoM)
Jørn Utzon’s 1956 competition design for the Sydney Opera House and its development to 1962 has been widely and intensively studied. The design’s much vaunted Promethean process of iteration and refinement has led to labels of innovation and the hailing of the Sydney Opera House as a major work of mid-twentieth century architecture. But little examined is the international and local context of discourse and production for that ‘innovation’. This paper places Utzon’s design within its diverse contexts: of competitions in Australia and internationally after 1945; contemporary performing arts complexes; experimentation in concrete shell structures as new forms of monumental and spatial expression; and the arguably new conceptual settings for modern architecture of landscape and cross-cultural allusion.

11.40am
SOH: Delivering new technologies
Tristram Carfare RDI
Arup
The design and construction of the Sydney Opera House is full of innovation. It was the first time that digital computers, then resident in university basements, were used in structural analysis, and later in the construction surveying.

The sails were made using repetitive match-cast concrete segments, clamped together by post-tensioned steel strands, with a thin layer of epoxy in between. This was the first time glued segmental construction was used, now commonplace in building big bridges.

The building is clad with precast concrete tile lids, the concrete cast directly on an upturned bed of Swedish ceramic tiles, then clipped into place on exquisitely detailed fixings that allow cladding and structure to move independently and provide a durable, beautiful, waterproof whole.

The sails were constructed by an on-site factory devised by the progressive builder Hornibrook, with pieces made at the South end of the site and then assembled in situ to the North using two rail mounted cranes that steadily retreated towards the harbour leaving the completed sails behind them. Fifty years later, we call this approach “modern methods of construction”.

The geometry of the glass walls, wonderfully resolved by Hall Todd & Littlemore, is much more complex than the sails themselves. After thorough research, these massive, top hung walls are built using laminated glass (safety glass), used for the first time in a building.

11.55am
Tracks, beds, cradles and needles: The construction of the sails
Prof. Paolo Tombesi
École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFI)
Within ‘normal’ architectural projects, building contractors are not expected to produce large amounts of drawings. In the Sydney Opera House, by contrast, the contractor Hornibrook generated over 5,000 of them, many of which played a major role in the definition of critical details of the building and its development process. The levels of technical sophistication and inventiveness that emerge from their analysis today permit to gauge, in hindsight, the importance of the Australian contribution to the making of the building’s structure and its sails.     

12.15pm
Panel 1: Innovation and Research
Moderator: Peter Mould (SOH DAP) and panellists Phillip Goad, Paolo Tombesi, Tristam Carfrae, Anne Watson

12.55pm

Lunch
Catering in the Utzon Room

After lunch, we will hear about how the Opera House is renewed for future generations of artists, audiences and visitors and our plans for conserving this iconic building.  

Ian Cashen (Director of Building, Safety and Security, SOH). will speak about the past decade of renewal projects, and Alan Croker (Director Design 5 and author of the SOH conservation management plan) will talk about the process of managing change at such a significant building.

Finally hear from Andrew Hayne (ARM Architects) about the award-winning Concert Hall renewal project, completed in 2022.  

2pm
Renewal: An Introduction
Sheridan Burke, SOH DAP

2.05pm
Decade of renewal
Ian Cashen
Executive Director, Building, Safety and Security, Sydney Opera House
The ‘Decade of Renewal’ saw the successful delivery of the largest capital investment in the Sydney Opera House since its original construction. It commenced with the completion of a new underground loading dock and culminated with the successful refurbishment of the Concert Hall, addressing long standing issues with acoustics, safety and equitable access to the largest internal venue. In addition to these flagship projects, the full program saw many other parts of the building and precinct upgraded to improve safety, technical capacity and access. The presentation will showcase the program and outcomes, as well as the meticulous design and planning process guided by key foundational frameworks such as the Utzon Design Principles, Conservation Management Plan and Strategic Building Plan.

2.25pm
Managing change
Alan Croker
Director, Design 5 - Architects
 

Sydney Opera House is internationally acclaimed as both an architectural masterpiece and a performing arts centre – its ‘form’ and its ‘function’.  These values cannot be considered separately; their fundamental interdependence being central to Jørn Utzon’s original vision.  This vision was supported and executed through collaboration and innovation by all involved in the project, including Peter Hall in its completion.

Understanding, strengthening and celebrating this vision underpins most decisions at the House, particularly the design and execution of recent Renewal Projects.

Bold and innovative changes have been made that challenge previously accepted norms for conservation in Australia.  This process of managing change at the Opera House, the role of the Utzon Design Principles and innovative tools introduced in the Conservation Management Plan, 4th edition, will be explained in this session.

2.45pm
Case Study: Concert Hall Renewal
Andrew Hayne, 
Principal, ARM Architecture

As the architects entrusted with the renewal of the Sydney Opera House Concert Hall, we embarked on a transformative journey in the heart of architectural history. This talk delves into the challenges of revitalizing an icon, a structure deeply embedded in the cultural fabric of Australia. Navigating the delicate balance between preservation and innovation, we faced the weight of legacy while envisioning a bold, contemporary response.

Through meticulous planning and a team driven by reverence for the original vision, we embarked on a process that demanded rigour and ingenuity. The Concert Hall Renewal project stands as a testament to the power of the synergy between tradition and innovation. We will highlight some of the key ideas that underpin our interventions, demonstrating that through research and vision, even the most cherished icons can evolve without compromising their timeless essence.

The final session will reflect on the day’s talks, the role of the Opera House as a performing arts centre, the future challenges and opportunities for the building and its role in the arts.  

In this session you’ll hear from Dr Scott Hill (Curator of The People’s House: Sydney Opera House at 50, Museums of History NSW) about the first year of performances when the building opened in 1973.

Louise Herron, Sydney Opera House, CEO, will reflect on the role of the House as a world-renowned performing arts centre and the approach to the future.

The day will end with a second and final panel discussion.

3.05pm
Reflections: An Introduction
Ken Maher, AO
SOH DAP

3.10pm
From Prokofiev to Les Girls: the first year of performance at the Sydney Opera House   
Dr Scott Hill
Curator, Museums of History NSW
Officially opened on October 20th, 1973, the Sydney Opera House had already been operating as a performing arts venue for nearly a year. From acoustic tests to ‘gala’ openings, concerts to plays, to dance and exhibitions, in the months leading up to its opening the new venue was put through its paces. In revisiting the performances both before the opening and in the following year, we see that diversity – in production, content, cast and audience, was a feature of programming. Audiences were as likely to see a rock concert, a surf film or marionettes as they were a symphony or opera.     

Several of these performances were broadcast internationally to huge audiences, cementing the role the iconic structure had achieved around the world as the image of modern Australia.  Importantly, we also see that a strong Indigenous presence has been a part of Opera House programming since the curtains first rose

3.30pm
Everyone’s House: the next chapter
Louise Herron
CEO, SOH
Long before any plans had been drawn up, and long before the first stone had been turned, the Sydney Opera House was conceived as a cultural meeting place that belonged to the people around it. This is the simple but powerful idea that animates so much of what we do today as we start to write the next chapter of the Opera House story. With the 50th anniversary behind us, we are working towards transforming the building into Everyone’s House as we focus again on the foundational principles that underpin this living work of art.

3.45pm
Panel 2: Reflections

Moderator: Ken Maher (SOH DAP) and panellists Louise Herron, Richard Johnson, Alan Croker and Abbie Galvin

4.25pm
Conclusion of Symposium
Louise Herron
CEO, SOH

Unveiling of the Creators Project

Symposium attendees invited to the Box Office Podium for a glass of champagne and the unveiling of the Creators Project, recognising Sydney Opera House key creators Utzon, Arup and Hall.