Sydney Opera House: From a No-Go Architecture to a UNESCO World Heritage Site

When in 1957 the Danish architect Jørn Utzon won the international competition for the new Sydney Opera House, few could have imagined that the profile of those “sails” would forever redefine Australia’s image.

The famous architecture appeared visionary and, to many, technically unfeasible – more a dream than a building. Yet from that dream would emerge one of the most recognisable cultural landmarks on the planet.

The Sydney Opera theatre was, at the outset, a battleground of political and media contention. Costs soared (from 7 to 102 million Australian dollars), timelines stretched (from 4 to 14 years), and disputes between designer and client culminated in Utzon’s resignation in 1966. Newspapers condemned it as an “architectural folly”, public opinion mocked it, and political parties wielded it as a weapon.

Yet the construction site did not stop: between 1959 and 1973, around 10,000 people worked on it – a number now commemorated by the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia to highlight the human as well as the technical dimension of the collective effort behind this Sydney famous building, which was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2007.

The technical breakthrough that made the shells buildable – deriving their sections from a spherical surface – transformed the impossible into concrete and steel. The construction became an open-air laboratory: new prefabrication techniques, pioneering logistics, and cutting-edge structural calculations.

When Queen Elizabeth II inaugurated the Sydney Opera House in 1973, what had been branded a “fiasco” revealed itself to be a masterpiece.

Fifty years later, the positive outcome is plain to see.

In 2023, Deloitte estimated the social value of the Sydney Opera House at 11.4 billion dollars, an increase of 38% compared to the previous decade. According to the same report, “in the same fiscal year (FY23), the iconic building’s contribution to the state’s economy was quantified at 1.2 billion dollars.”

The Sydney Opera theatre is Australia’s most admired cultural landmark, hosting over 1,800 performances each year and attracting 1.4 million spectators.

Looking back, the benefits have far outweighed the difficulties of construction. The famous building born amidst controversy and sarcasm has become a national asset capable of attracting investment, tourists, and creative talent – generating returns far beyond box-office revenue.

The innovation that allowed the Sydney Opera House architecture to “take flight” finds an echo, in both method and ambition, in the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Centre in Athens, designed by Renzo Piano and built by Webuild in 2017.

The cultural complex of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation is topped by an exceptional 10,000-square-metre photovoltaic roof – a thin “canopy”, suspended on pillars, which contributes to the centre’s energy self-sufficiency. It is a solution that is both structural and environmental: a roof that is also an energy infrastructure, integrated with a park and green surfaces.

Projects destined to redefine an area – especially when they lie beyond the ordinary – often pass through an initial phase of design scepticism and raise doubts over timing and costs, but then once completed they become essential works for people and territories. This has happened in the past and will continue to happen in the future for the most challenging major projects in Italy and across the world.

Because when design engages in dialogue with engineering, and engineering with the landscape and communities, the result is not merely “built” but “embraced”. It becomes an integral part of people’s lives, something they feel as their own – loved and lived in.