Sydney Opera House
A Sail Among the Harbour
schedule 3 min read / Updated Apr 2026
The most recognisable building in the southern hemisphere and an Australian icon since the sails were first raised over Bennelong Point in 1973. The Sydney Opera House is a UNESCO World Heritage site, a working performing arts centre, and one of the most visited cultural venues on earth with more than 10 million visitors a year.
The Sydney Opera House stands on Bennelong Point at the edge of Sydney Harbour, directly opposite the Harbour Bridge and across the water from Kirribilli. The point is named for Woollarawarre Bennelong, a senior Gadigal man of the Wangal clan who became a key cultural intermediary between the British colony and the Eora nation in the late 1780s. The site was a significant gathering place for the Gadigal people long before European arrival.
The building was designed by Danish architect Jorn Utzon, who won an international design competition in 1957 at age 38. Construction started in 1959 but quickly ran into engineering problems that the original brief had not foreseen, particularly around how to build the curved shell roofs. Utzon and his team solved the problem by treating each shell as a section of a sphere, allowing them to be precast off-site and lifted into position. Utzon resigned from the project in 1966 after disputes with the New South Wales government and never returned to see the completed building.
The Opera House was finally opened by Queen Elizabeth II on 20 October 1973, fourteen years after construction began and more than ten times over its original budget. It cost $102 million against a projected $7 million and was effectively funded through the Opera House Lottery, a state-run lottery created specifically to raise the money. The lottery ran from 1957 to 1986.
The building contains seven performance venues and hosts more than 1,500 performances every year. The Concert Hall seats 2,679 and is home to the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. The Joan Sutherland Theatre (renamed from the Opera Theatre in 2012) seats 1,507 and is the main home of Opera Australia and the Australian Ballet. The smaller Drama Theatre, Playhouse, Studio and Utzon Room host theatre, cabaret, chamber music and experimental work throughout the year.
The exterior is covered in 1,056,006 tiles made in Sweden by the Hoganas ceramic company, arranged in a self-cleaning chevron pattern that sheds dirt with every rain shower. The off-white colour was chosen to complement the sandstone of the surrounding harbour and the changing light of Sydney mornings. At night the building is lit from within, and during Vivid Sydney each May and June the sails become a projection surface for some of the largest light installations in the world.
Guided tours run daily and are the standard way to see the building without buying a performance ticket. The standard one-hour tour covers the major venues and the backstage history, while the more detailed Backstage Tour runs at 7am before performances start and includes areas the public never normally sees. Both tours are bookable directly through the Opera House website and typically sell out a week in advance during peak tourist season.
Book performances well in advance if a specific show matters to you. Opera Australia's major productions and Sydney Symphony's concert series sell out months ahead, especially in summer when the outdoor Handa Opera on Sydney Harbour festival runs on a floating stage in Farm Cove. For the best photo of the building itself, the short ferry ride from Circular Quay to Kirribilli or Manly gives the classic skyline shot, and the Mrs Macquaries Chair lookout at sunset is the definitive postcard angle.
Gallery
Sydney Opera House in pictures.
7 images licensed from Wikimedia Commons
All images are sourced from Wikimedia Commons under Creative Commons licences. Individual photographers are credited on the source pages.
Scenic views
Lookouts near Sydney Opera House.
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Attribution
Sources & credits
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Images (7)
- MC Sydney Opera House.jpg · Christian Mehlführer, User:Chmehl · CC BY 2.5
- Sydney (AU), View from Opera House, Harbour Bridge -- 2019 -... · Dietmar Rabich · CC BY-SA 4.0
- Sydney Harbour Bridge night.jpg · Diliff · CC BY-SA 3.0
- Sydney Opera House - Dec 2008.jpg · Diliff · CC BY-SA 3.0
- North view of Sydney Opera House, the Rocks and Sydney CBD 2... · DXR · CC BY-SA 4.0
- Sydney (AU), Harbour Bridge -- 2019 -- 2114.jpg · Dietmar Rabich · CC BY-SA 4.0
- Sydney Opera House and Harbour Bridge Dusk (2) 2019-06-21.jp... · Benh LIEU SONG (Flickr) · CC BY-SA 4.0
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Images sourced from Wikimedia Commons under licenses that permit commercial use. If you are the rights holder and believe an attribution is incorrect, please contact us.