Sydney: Day 1

The tiles of the Sydney Opera House

The Opera House from across the water

The Sydney Opera House at night

Today was our first day in Sydney, the Capitol of New South Whales.  We took a train into the city early in the morning and of course, our first stop was the Sydney Opera House.

The Sydney Opera House was the result of a worldwide design competition around 1950.  The winner of the competition was a Danish man named Jørn Utzon.  The project was expected to last three years and cost 7 million dollars, but in the end took almost 15 years and cost 102 million dollars.  The construction ended in 1973.  Half way through the protect, Utzon was fired because of his extreme underestimation, and he returned to Denmark.  However, the construction continued, and the interior was designed by Australian architects.  After some time, Utzon was rehired, and led the operation from his home in Denmark.  He never returned to see the Opera House completed.  The iconic white shells of the Sydney Opera House are actually covered in white and beige tiles so as not the make the building to blinding in the bright light.  In fact, architect Louis Kahn, who designed the Phillips Exeter Library, said, "The sun didn't know how beautiful its rays were until they were reflected off this building."

The Sydney Opera House is actually three separate structures, one small building being renovated into a restaurant, and two larger structures.  The biggest of those two contains the largest hall in the House, seating about 2500 people, and three smaller performance spaces.  The second large structure contains a hall about half the size of the largest one.

After a tour of the Opera House, we walked along the Sydney Harbor Bridge, the second largest single span bridge in the world.  We walked about halfway across the bridge, took pictures from a new angle of the Opera House, and walked back.  We had dinner on the roof of a building with another view of the Sydney Opera House, and then walked to the Lindt Café where there was a terrorist attack last year.  We were hoping to get dessert there, but they were closed, so we will try to return tomorrow.