Sydney Opera House Tile Roof Structure

The roof of the sydney opera house has a whopping 1 056 000 glazed white granite tiles that have been imported from sweden.

Sydney opera house tile roof structure.

Seven a380s could sit wing to wing on the site. Sydney opera house was added to unesco s world heritage list in 2007 there are more than 1 million roof tiles covering approximately 1 62 hectares sitting over the structure. Between 1958 and 1962 the roof design for the sydney opera house evolved through various iterations as utzon and his team pursued parabolic ellipsoid and finally spherical geometry to derive the final form of the shells. The impressive and subtle chevron pattern has glossy white matte cream coloured tiles manufactured by höganäs ab.

Sydney opera house was opened by queen elizabeth ii on 20th october 1973. As construction of the podium began in sydney jørn utzon and his team of architects back in hallebaek explored how to build the opera house s shell shaped roof. Though they are meant to be self cleaning in nature they still require maintenance replacement. Timber illustrates the origin of the roof geometry of the sydney opera house designed by jørn utzon made by ove arup and partners england australia 1961 65.

The adjoining arch segments were constructed on a steel centering and stressed together to form a stable structure. The roof structure consists of over 2 400 precast arch units placed on cast in situ concrete pedestals. They re laid out not as squares but rather as diamond shapes and although from a distance the opera house appears to be white there are actually two tile colours and textures on display glossy white and matt cream. For such an enormous construction the tiles are not particularly large around 120 mm square.

Principal curator matthew connell explores the ideas behind the creation of sydney s most famous building.