The Great Hall of the Sydney Opera House

See the geometry and waves in the ceiling. It is an illustration of Jørn's unrealized proposal for the great hall in the Sydney Opera House, where the audience would experience operas in spectacular surroundings.

Jørn had a clear vision for how the great hall should look. The graphic illustration shows the final proposal for the hall's acoustic ceiling. It is characterized by circular geometries inspired by waveforms.

The ceiling had to be built from prefabricated plywood box beams lined with lead, to exclude sound. Jørn wanted to use gold and red in the great hall, which should symbolize the light of day and evoke an atmosphere of festive events.

He also had a small hall on the drawing board. It was to be dominated by silver and blue to suggest night, intimacy and melancholy.

But disagreements arose with the authorities in Sydney, and Jørn left the building in 1966. The concert halls that can be seen in the building today were not built based on Jørn's designs.