 | ADDING TO THE OPERA HOUSE REVIEW Sandra Kaji-O’Grady
PHOTOGRAPHER Eric Sierins
| Jørn Utzon’s Western Colonnade, the first addition to the exterior of the Sydney Opera House, provides an opportunity for reconciliation and a reminder that the building is a living place as well as an icon. |
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Looking towards the
Sydney Opera House from
the lower concourse.
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The Sydney Opera
House, with the new
Western Colonnade,
seen to the right. The
colonnade has been
designed to cast a
shadow over the new
openings in the podium.
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The colonnade seen
from the upper
concourse.
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Looking from the
Western Foyer, through
a new angled opening,
to the harbour.
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The
colonnade allows nine
new openings, three
doors and six windows,
to be punched through
into the foyer.
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Looking along the
colonnade, showing the
new connection
between broadwalk and
foyer.
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The Sydney
Opera House at twilight.
The new colonnade is in
the centre of the image.
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Few “alts and adds” are opened by Her
Majesty the Queen. Adjacent to any other
building, the new colonnade on the
western flank of the Sydney Opera House
would attract little attention from
architects, the press or the public, let
alone royalty. Formally, it’s a
straightforward affair sitting just proud
of the existing podium upon which the
opera shells metaphorically “sail”.
It comprises a forty-five-metre-long,
five-metre-deep verandah shading new
openings. There are ten equal bays, with
twenty paired columns supporting a flat
traversable roof edged in concrete panels
identical to those on the abutting walls.
The concrete columns sport impressively
sharp arrises, but, at three metres high and
with 400-mm-square cross sections, their
proportions are disappointingly squat.
Given the expressive and dynamic forms
of other structural concrete elements
found at the Sydney Opera House, these
are very restrained. Unrelieved by capital,
base, fluting or ornament, they meet other
elements with a consistent negative joint
detail. Behind the colonnade the wall has
nine new openings, three doors and six
windows. These are also modest, the
windows being just 1.95 metres wide and
2.1 meters high. They have two-metredeep
niches that increase in size towards
the interior at a 105 degree angle and are
intended to enlarge the views out towards
the harbour while preserving the hard
edge of the podium. Being largely fixed
glass these openings don’t provide the
continuity between foyer and outside
space that would be desirable.
Premier Morris Iemma, in his address
for the opening of the colonnade, tells
the audience that he is “proud of its
craftsmanship and good taste”, but there
are many new architectural projects in
NSW with these qualities that don’t get
his attention. This, however, is the
Sydney Opera House – much more is
at stake than craft.
The opening is on Commonwealth
Day, the second Monday in March, and
we are all gathered to the side of the
colonnade wishing it were large enough
to protect us from the blazing sun. Our
show bags are hefty given the scale of the
project – they include biographies of the
royal couple, a commemorative plaque
attached to a section of roof tile, and a
photographic record of the building under
construction by Jeremy Piper “in the style
of Max Dupain”. It is apparent that the
cause of the circling helicopters, attendant
police and security, bag checks and metal
detectors, kilted bagpipers, hatted and
gloved dignitaries, public bearing flowers
and HM the Queen resplendent in apple
green is not the colonnade itself, nor the
nuances of royal reportage, but what the
colonnade makes possible.
The colonnade is the first exterior
change to the building and was overseen
by Jørn Utzon, in collaboration with his
son Jan and the Sydney-based architect
Richard Johnson of Johnson Pilton Walker.
For the 87-year-old architect of the original
building, the point of the alterations lies
in opening up views from the foyer to the
harbour setting. The Studio, the Drama
Theatre and the Playhouse were not part
of the original scheme. In other foyer
spaces, Utzon sought to ensure that
audiences were constantly delighted by
the setting outside, but these western
venues were contained behind windowless
foyers. For the Utzons, the project seeks to
enrich the experience of the building
without disturbing the monolithic
character of the podium facade.
For the politicians and the SOH
management another motivation overlays
the desire to improve the audience
experience – to reconcile with Utzon.
As the Premier states, this addition
“represents and embodies” that
reconciliation. And, as Elizabeth Farrelly
observed four years ago, it provides a
great photo opportunity for the politicians.
Utzon was re-engaged in 1999 by the
SOH to develop a set of design principles
outlining his vision for the building and
its setting, as well as his views about its
future. As most know, Utzon left in 1966
following a series of disagreements with
the then state government. The
disagreement continues to disturb
successive governments, not only because
the building and its future remains a site
of contestation, but because the building
has come to exemplify what a recent
Sydney Morning Herald editorial perceives
as the restrictions on “rational, thought
out schemes of architects” by “extraneous
compromises made by developers,
bureaucrats and politicians”. The editorial
cites the Opera House as an instance
when “one architect’s vision was reduced
by suspicious politicians to a hotch-potch
which is still being argued over and
internally re-engineered at vast cost.”
In contrast, the chairman of the
Sydney Opera House, Kim Williams,
claims it to be the “finest building of the
twentieth century”. Among architects it
is generally agreed that it could have been
one of the finest buildings of its time, but
is, in fact, marred by the compromised
solutions wrought by those who took over
its design and completion, particularly
of the interiors. The very notion of Utzon
formalizing his design principles for the
building assumes the potential realization
of an idealized version of the Opera
House. This conclusion is, I think, too
easy. Without wanting to tread on the
toes of the numinous experts on the
Opera House and its history, there is no
ideal Opera House or “authentic vision”.
Utzon’s original design had
contradictions prior to any outside
interference. The asymmetrical sculptural
qualities of the shells meant that entrance
to the building and to all of its theatres
has always been less than celebratory.
The addition of a little colonnade, albeit
well made, inspired by Incan temple
ruins and with the imprimatur of Utzon,
cannot resolve this. But perhaps
resolution is not necessary. The process
of realizing and inhabiting buildings is,
paradoxically, both a reduction and an
enrichment of the original concept.
Contemporary heritage lore, as set out in
the Burra Charter, no longer values the
return of buildings to a single privileged
period or model, but advocates respect for
the stories made available by preserving
and interpreting all the residue of the
years. The Sydney Opera House – on the
State Heritage Register and National
Heritage List – is the material record of
both the political and architectural
process of its procurement, design and
construction, and also its current status as
national icon and tourist destination. And
while we might be more used to hearing
Prince Charles’s opinions on architecture,
it is worth ending with HM the Queen
who notes that the Opera House is not
something sacred, but a living place. It is
sufficiently robust and imperfect to take
on this and other considered additions,
each adding something to its story.
DR SANDRA KAJI-O’GRADY IS HEAD OF SCHOOL
AND ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF ARCHITECTURE
AT THE UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY, SYDNEY.
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WESTERN
COLONNADE,
SYDNEY OPERA
HOUSE
Architect Utzon
Architects and Johnson
Pilton Walker, architects
in collaboration—design
architect Jørn Utzon.
Heritage consultant
James Semple Kerr.
Project manager
CGP Management.
Structural, facade,
acoustic and fire
engineering consultant
Arup. Mechanical and
electrical consultant
Steensen Varming.
Fire and hydraulic
consultant Warren
Smith and Partners.
BCA consultant
Advance Building
Approvals. Quantity
surveyor Rider Hunt.
Builder St Hilliers
Contracting. Client
Sydney Opera House
Trust, represented by
Sydney Opera House
Building Development
Group.
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