Sydney Opera House Tiles Roof Structure

Like all tiles the tiles on the opera house which have come to be known as the sydney tile are made of fired clay.

Sydney opera house tiles roof structure. The roof structure consists of over 2 400 precast arch units placed on cast in situ concrete pedestals. 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. This is an extract from the publication icons which can be purchased online. 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. For such an enormous construction the tiles are not particularly large around 120 mm square. 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. There are 2194 precast roof sections weighing approximately 15 tons each.

The tiles used in the sydney opera house construction are 120mm square. Principal curator matthew connell explores the ideas behind the creation of sydney s most famous building. The roof of the sydney opera house has a whopping 1 056 000 glazed white granite tiles that have been imported from sweden. Though they are meant to be self cleaning in nature they still require maintenance replacement.

The roof is supported on 32 8 ft2 concrete columns. Sydney opera house model. The building rests on. 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.

The sydney opera house s glistening roof is achieved through the use of 1 056 006 roof tiles.