I know it’s a cliche, but the very first time I set foot in Australia as a twentysomething backpacker, the first thing I did was head straight to Circular Quay, hop on the Manly ferry, and take a frankly unnecessary number of photos of the Sydney Opera House as it glided past.

Together with the Harbour Bridge, this incredible piece of architecture is the defining image that springs to mind when people from other parts of the world think of Australia. Architect Jørn Utzon’s design is truly iconic – another cliche, sure, but one that’s fully warranted in this case.

Yesterday marked exactly 50 years since the Opera House was officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II, in a lavish ceremony that gestured both to Australia’s deep Indigenous roots and the imperialism that came much later. As Macquarie University historian Michelle Arrow explains, the building was one of the hallmarks of Australia’s “new nationalism” of the 1970s.

This was a time when Australia sought to project a newly self-confident and sophisticated identity, of which the arts were seen as an essential ingredient. (Mind you, the cultural cringe still hadn’t vanished yet: the Canberra Times felt obliged to report on the British media’s condescending verdict that Australia had finally “turned a corner artistically”.)

Although Utzon famously quit the project years before its completion, the Opera House was triumphant from the moment it opened. Arrow argues that it is the clearest emblem of Australia’s 1970s cultural renaissance, with its “soaring sails, the bold rich colours of the interiors, and John Coburn’s glorious, confident curtains for the performance venues”.

Today it is a treasured part of Sydney cultural life, and has stayed largely true to Premier Joe Cahill’s 1959 promise that “the average working family” would be able to afford to attend. As Arrow says: “This radiant, soaring building belongs to all of us.”

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