Sydney Opera House Coloring Pages

A White-Roofed Theater by the Sea

The Sydney Opera House is a theater in the city of Sydney, Australia.
It stands on a spot that sticks out into the harbor, surrounded by the sea on three sides.
Its main feature is the many overlapping, pointed white roofs.
They look like sails on a ship, or even like seashells.
Inside, there are many halls for operas and concerts.

A Design Chosen in a Contest

The design for the Sydney Opera House was chosen in a contest in 1957.
The winner was an idea by a Danish architect named Jørn Utzon.
But at first, nobody knew how to build roofs with a shape like that!
Construction started in 1959. People worked through every hard problem step by step, and it was finally finished in 1973.

A World Heritage Site, Even Though It Is New

The Sydney Opera House became a World Heritage site in 2007.
That was less than 40 years after it was built!
It is one of the newest buildings on the World Heritage list.
It gained high praise as a masterpiece made by human talent.

Looking from the Sea, or Up Close

The first coloring page shows the Sydney Opera House seen from the sea.
The white roofs overlap, making it look like it is floating in the harbor.
The second coloring page shows the roof up close.
The surface of the roof is packed with tiny V-shaped patterns.
These are patterns made by tiles placed all over the roof.
Try counting the roofs as you color, starting from the tallest one and moving to the smaller ones on the sides!

Many Shows All Year Round

At the Sydney Opera House, you can see all kinds of shows, like operas, ballets, orchestra concerts, and plays.
There are also tours that guide you inside the building, so visitors come from all over the world.
Next to it is a big arch bridge called the Harbour Bridge. The view with both of them together is very famous.
On New Year's Eve, big fireworks go off around the bridge and the Sydney Opera House.
The Sydney Opera House is the symbol of Sydney, and it is loved by people all across the world.

Color the white roofs with cream and light gray

The Sydney Opera House roofs are made of white and cream tiles.
Leave the paper white where the light hits. Add light gray or light sky blue on the other side.
Where the roofs overlap, make the roof in the back a bit darker. That makes it easy to tell front from back!
For the V-shaped pattern on the second coloring page, add cream here and there to make the tiles look shiny.

The base building is reddish brown

The base building under the roofs is reddish brown or orange-brown.
The difference between the white roofs and the reddish-brown base makes it look just like the Sydney Opera House!
If you make the side lines a little darker, you can see the different floors.

The blue sea of Sydney

Layer blue and sky blue for the sea. Leave the space around the wave lines white to make sparkling water!
Color the sky light sky blue so the white roofs stand out.
If you color the town in the back on the first coloring page with light colors, it will look far away.

Evening and night colors look great too

In the evening, the white roofs of the Sydney Opera House turn orange and pink.
It is fun to change the sky from orange to purple and color the roofs light orange!
Line them up with the Eiffel Tower and Statue of Liberty coloring pages to take a tour of famous world spots!

Color the overlapping roofs one by one

There are many overlapping roofs, so decide the order to color them one by one.
If you start coloring from the front roof, it is hard to make a mistake about which one is in front!

More than 1 million tiles

The roof of the Sydney Opera House has about 1.05 million tiles on it.
The tiles come in 2 colors, white and cream. They look like they change color depending on how the light hits them.
People say the roof was also made so that when it rains, the dirt washes right off!

The secret of the roof's shape

At first, the design had roof parts with all different shapes, so nobody could build it.
Then, Utzon had a great idea to make all the roof parts from shapes cut out of one big sphere.
This way, people could make many parts with the same shape and put them together.
There is also a story that he came up with this idea when he peeled an orange!

Did the architect never see it finished?

Utzon left the project while it was being built and went away from Australia.
People say he never got to see the finished Sydney Opera House with his own eyes.
Even so, Utzon was still alive when it was chosen as a World Heritage Site.

What does the roof look like to you?

People compare the roof of the Sydney Opera House to sails, seashells, and many other things.
What does it look like to you?