2023 50c AlBr Uncirculated Coin - 50th Anniversary of the Sydney Opera House

The Sydney Opera House has been a source of wonder since it was a sketch on a page. In 1954, the then NSW Premier, Joseph Cahill, promised a structure that would be a credit to the state for hundreds of years. Then, from a small coastal town in Denmark came a vision from architect Jorn Utzon that would forever change the face of Sydney.

Now a symbol of modern Australia, the Sydney Opera House has more than repaid the conviction of Utzon and Australian architect Peter Hall, who transformed these dreams into the creative masterpiece that stands today. When the building finally opened its doors in October 1973, a new era of creativity and connection began.

Five decades later, the Opera House is everyone’s house. It is the nation’s premier tourist destination, one of the world’s busiest performing arts centres and a community meeting place that belongs to all Australians. To visit Bennelong Point – known to its traditional custodians, the Gadigal, as Tubowgule – is to encounter a story of contemporary experience that continues to renew itself each day.

As the Sydney Opera House turns 50 in 2023, we celebrate the extraordinary past, present and future of Australia’s favourite building. A World Heritage-listed masterpiece of “human creative genius”, from conception to completion, the building tested the limits of engineering, construction and design. Now, after half a century of creativity and a Decade of Renewal that transformed the building for the 21st century, the stage is set for the next era.

• Coin’s reverse depicts the iconic Sydney Opera House, as viewed from the west, along with the 50th anniversary Sydney Opera House logo, celebratory confetti and stylised rippled water of Sydney’s harbor.

• Coin’s obverse features the Memorial Obverse of Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II designed by Jody Clark.

• Limited mintage of 50,000.

• Australian legal tender.