Virtual Tour Series: Sydney – Oslo, Operas on the Waterfront

The Sydney Opera House was one of the earliest gamechangers, almost single handedly putting a small, parochial and deeply conservative city on the international map whilst changing a city’s relationship to its harbour. Yet its architect was largely ignored by ’serious’ 20th century architectural historians, was forced from the project mid-construction and was treated appallingly on his return to Denmark. Where on earth did this ethereal creature come from? Was the building the first piece in a bold urban vision to re-think the city’s industrial waterfront or were project beginnings more about happenstance and good fortune?
35 years later, the Oslo Opera also set out to change the relation of the city with its waterfront. Without the decision to locate the opera in the eastern harbour area, the transformation of the Bjørvika bay district would probably have been postponed for many years. The opera is the locomotive for massive architectural and infrastructural projects, and also a gamechanger concerning public space (with an ‘urban plaza’ roof open to all), access to the water and use of the lobby as a living room for the citizens, with inviting vistas towards both city centre and fjord.