Sydney Opera House Roof Tiles

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

Sydney opera house roof tiles. And the finishing tiles. What s more you can buy them to use at home. 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. Its interior is composed of pink granite mined from tarana nsw and white birch and brush box plywood supplied from northern nsw.

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. The opera house s roof is constructed of 1 056 000 glazed white granite tiles imported from sweden. The sydney opera house s glistening roof is achieved through the use of 1 056 006 roof tiles. They were made in sweden.

For such an enormous construction the tiles are not particularly large around 120 mm square. Glossy off white tiles make up the majority of the tiles used whilst matt bone color tiles are used at edges of tiles panels or at the edges of the shells picture 1 shows this well. Though they are meant to be self cleaning in nature they still require maintenance replacement. 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. The structural rib segments. Sydney opera house was opened by queen elizabeth ii on 20th october 1973. Like all tiles the tiles on the opera house which have come to be known as the sydney tile are made of fired clay.

Even today they are known as the sydney tile. Sydney opera house model. The tiles used in the sydney opera house construction are 120mm square. Despite their self cleaning nature they are still subject to maintenance and replacement.

The connection detail between the elements of the sydney opera house roof was a complex design challenge. The roof of the sydney opera house has a whopping 1 056 000 glazed white granite tiles that have been imported from sweden. The tiles supporting lidswith their fixing brackets. 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.