Moments from Sydney Opera House

Danish architect Jorn Utzon won the international design competition for the Sydney Opera House in 1957 with a design so structurally ambitious, a series of interlocking shell-like roof forms, that engineers spent years working out how to actually build it, and the project ran so far over budget and behind schedule that Utzon resigned in 1966 amid political pressure and left the country before the building was finished, never returning to Australia to see the completed structure in person before his death. It finally opened in 1973, and the sail-like roof shells, clad in over a million glazed white tiles, remain one of the most instantly recognizable pieces of architecture anywhere on Earth, a UNESCO World Heritage Site that functions as much as a work of sculpture as a working performance venue.

Beyond attending a scheduled opera, concert, or theatre performance inside, the building rewards simply walking its exterior forecourt and steps, particularly at sunset when the tiled shells catch the changing light over the harbor. During the annual Vivid Sydney festival each winter, the shells themselves become a canvas for large-scale projected light art, worth timing a visit around if elaborate projection-based public art interests you specifically.