Illuminating the Sydney Opera House: Lighting, theatricality and Jørn Utzon’s ‘Journey’, 1965-2015

Good architectural lighting strives for much more than functional illumination. Such lighting aspires to a seamless integration with the building; light provides an extension of a structure’s aesthetic qualities and serves a variety of practical functions including safety and wayfinding. This thesis examines the story of lighting the Sydney Opera House with a particular focus on Jørn Utzon’s concept of the ‘journey’ and how entering what is now one of the world’s most famous performing arts complexes is a transition from the ‘everyday’ to the extraordinary, from the routine to the theatrical. Moreover, this thesis demonstrates how the efforts of lighting designer John Waldram who, with architect Peter Hall, produced a timeless scheme drawing on Utzon’s concepts which illuminate the external structure and the internal areas, innovatively integrating lighting and architecture for a building conceived of as a sculpture. This case study investigates the lighting of the Sydney Opera House’s famous ‘shells’ as well as exploring the public stages and private spaces within the complex. The public stages comprise six internal venues and one flexible external venue connected by a variety of public spaces such as broad walks, foyers, restaurants and retail outlets. There are also over 2,000 private spaces including dressing rooms, administration offices, support and ancillary areas, underpinning the various activities that take place on the stages and in the public areas. Light guides artists, patrons and the vast array of workers that bring this well-known building, and the activities performed within it, to life, offering visual clues for amenities, revealing unique combinations of construction fabrics and regularly reiterating the theatricality of the ‘journey’ and so reinforcing the building’s primary purpose. There are many competing, and controversial, stories around this icon of the built environment. This case study privileges the, often-overlooked, contribution that lighting has made to the unique edifice that is the Sydney Opera House and how light is, too, a storyteller.