The concert hall was at first intended to be a multi-purpose auditorium serving both concert and opera the change of use and the accompanying demand for an increase in the number of seats have involved strains and changes not only in the design of the concert hall itself but throughout. The building as completed contains a concert hall, an opera theatre, a drama theatre and a small theatre which will be used by both cinema and chamber music groups, not entirely to the satisfaction of either a large exhibition area and a recording studio which can also be used for rehearsal a small recital room and a variety of restaurants, bars, and ancillary public spaces. In this article Tom Heath, an Australian architect and partner in the firm of McConnel Smith & Johnson, examines the building itself, rather than the story of its construction, much of which is already well known. The glass walls and the whole of the interior design, including the very substantial replanning occasioned by changes in the proposed uses of the building, are the work of the architects who succeeded Jørn Utzon. At that time the podium and the vaults were complete in form. During this long gestation, the project has suffered from almost every ill which a major building can suffer, most notably the resignation of the original architect in 1966, a tragedy in the proper sense. The fundamental ideas of the design were established as a result of an international competition held in 1956, 17 years ago the building has now been completed at a cost of $100 million. Many of the ideas which the Sydney Opera House embodies, in particular the view of life which thought it appropriate to enshrine and isolate the dramatic arts of a whole city in a cathedral of culture, are extinct.

This piece was originally published in AR September 1973, and was republished online in Februrary 2019 to coincide with a feature on the heroic failures of Jørn Utzon’s Sydney Opera House and Can Lis. Even before its opening in October 1973, the Sydney Opera House was already considered a piece of architectural history

Sydney opera house original design