New Look Interiors for Sydney Opera House
Nearly 40 years after the architect Jorn Utzon walked away from his most famous project, Sydney Opera House unveiled his first new work on the building since it opened in 1973. The reclusive Dane resigned from the half-completed project in 1966 after a dispute with the New South Wales...
Nearly 40 years after the architect Jorn Utzon walked away from his most famous project, Sydney Opera House unveiled his first new work on the building since it opened in 1973.
The reclusive Dane resigned from the half-completed project in 1966 after a dispute with the New South Wales government about rising costs.
The interior was finished by a team of Australian architects in a gloomy brutalist style which contrasted sharply with Mr Utzon's soaring sails, and it has been marked for renovation for many years.
But after the bitterness of his departure it was not until 1999, after he had retired, that the Australian architect Richard Johnson was able to persuade Mr Utzon to work again on the building which made his name.
Then, at 86, he decided that he was too frail to travel and left the site work to Mr Johnson and his son Jan.
He has never seen his completed masterpiece.
The reception hall unveiled yesterday - hitherto used for private functions and little seen by the public - is just a foretaste of the A$69m (£27m) redesign .
Mr Utzon has designed new light fittings and furniture and new finishes for the parquet flooring and soaring concrete roof beams.
The hall's centrepiece is a 14 metre (45ft 6in) tapestry inspired by the Hamburg Symphonies of CPE Bach, which Mr Utzon designed using strips of torn paper.
His daughter Lin, who attended the opening, supervised the work.
The tapestry will both brighten the room's long grey wall facing the harbour and improve its acoustics.
"Utzon has a marvellous intuitive grasp of design," the chief executive of the Opera House, Norman Gillespie, said.
"The distance he suggested the tapestry be hung away from the wall turns out to be almost exactly the distance needed for acoustic dampening."
On the opposite side of the building, facing the harbour bridge, the Opera House's theatre foyers are going to have views of the water at Circular Quay.
Where now there is a blank wall of concrete, the redesign envisages glazing, with the foyers opening on to a glass-panelled colonnade.
The reclusive Dane resigned from the half-completed project in 1966 after a dispute with the New South Wales government about rising costs.
The interior was finished by a team of Australian architects in a gloomy brutalist style which contrasted sharply with Mr Utzon's soaring sails, and it has been marked for renovation for many years.
But after the bitterness of his departure it was not until 1999, after he had retired, that the Australian architect Richard Johnson was able to persuade Mr Utzon to work again on the building which made his name.
Then, at 86, he decided that he was too frail to travel and left the site work to Mr Johnson and his son Jan.
He has never seen his completed masterpiece.
The reception hall unveiled yesterday - hitherto used for private functions and little seen by the public - is just a foretaste of the A$69m (£27m) redesign .
Mr Utzon has designed new light fittings and furniture and new finishes for the parquet flooring and soaring concrete roof beams.
The hall's centrepiece is a 14 metre (45ft 6in) tapestry inspired by the Hamburg Symphonies of CPE Bach, which Mr Utzon designed using strips of torn paper.
His daughter Lin, who attended the opening, supervised the work.
The tapestry will both brighten the room's long grey wall facing the harbour and improve its acoustics.
"Utzon has a marvellous intuitive grasp of design," the chief executive of the Opera House, Norman Gillespie, said.
"The distance he suggested the tapestry be hung away from the wall turns out to be almost exactly the distance needed for acoustic dampening."
On the opposite side of the building, facing the harbour bridge, the Opera House's theatre foyers are going to have views of the water at Circular Quay.
Where now there is a blank wall of concrete, the redesign envisages glazing, with the foyers opening on to a glass-panelled colonnade.
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