The opera house in Port Jackson or Sydney Port of New South Wales, Australia is an iconic building with a roof made of sail-shaped shells. This unique structure makes it one of the most photo-graphed buildings in the world. The design of the Opera House was chosen out of 233 designs received as a part of the Opera House international design competition conducted in 1956. The winning design was submitted by Jorn Utzon of Denmark who was given prize money of £5000. The Australian architectural team led by Peter Hall constructed the building. Initially estimated to cost 7 million Australian dollars, the structure’s final cost of construction was nearly 102 million, which was mainly paid for by the State Lottery. The opera house formally opened on 20th October 1973.
There are multiple performance venues in the Sydney Opera House. 1500 performances are conducted here every year, which are attended by over 1.2 million people.
The Sydney Opera House is located on Bennelong Point, named after Woollarawarre Bennelong. He was a senior Aboriginal man of the Eora clan when the British colonisers came to Australia in 1788.
The Sydney Opera House was added to the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites in 2007. The building is managed by the Sydney Opera House Trust of the New South Wales state government.
Picture Credit : Google
