Go backstage at the Sydney Opera House with Google's virtual museum

The sails of the Sydney Opera House are recognisable around the world, but the space beneaththem remains largely hidden.

On Wednesday, the building and the Google Cultural Institute, an initiative that hosts virtual museums from around the world, announced a new partnership that will see more than 1,000 of the House's artefacts posted online. The digital collection includes sketches from the original architect, Jørn Utzon, as well as early footage of the building under construction.

A 360-degree video experience will let visitors explore backstage between acts, whether online or through the company's budget virtual reality headset, Google Cardboard. New Google Street View footage will also take users to the harbour forecourt or onto the opera stage.

The Sydney Opera House is not the first Australian location with a rich cultural heritage to join the Google Cultural Institute — the Art Gallery of New South Wales and the Australian War Memorial also have works and stories online, among others.

"The opportunity that the world will now have is to see the Opera House not from the traditional vision or the imagery that is etched in their minds, but they will now get a unique opportunity to explore inside," New South Wales Deputy Premier and Minister for the Arts Troy Grant said at the launch event in Sydney Wednesday. 

"They will get a unique understanding of what makes this building so very special."

Australians can expect the House to be explored online by a very international crowd, Amit Sood, director of the Google Cultural Institute, told Mashable Australia. "We have a lot of people coming from the U.S. and Europe," he said, "but our trend, that's very encouraging, is in the top 10 this year we have China, India and Brazil.

"When you have diversity in traffic, that's when you're achieving the goal."

Generally, visitors to the Google Cultural Institute are either culture mavens or merely curious. "That’s where the really exciting opportunity is," Sood said. "People who say 'opera is not for me, or 'fine art is not for me' — it's inaccessible, it's too posh, it's too old. This user gets exposed to an artwork and then starts travelling around the site and exposed to new things."

Part of Ove Arup's sketch ideas for the vaulted roof of the Sydney Opera House.

IMAGE: COURTESY RIBA, LONDON, ENGLAND, SYDNEY OPERA HOUSE

Sood could not share which institution globally is most visited online, but suggested classic works are perennial favourites. "The most popular is usually the fine arts section, to start with. Van Gogh's "Starry Night" has been one of our leading artworks for awhile, but that's changing quickly," he said. "We're starting to see contemporary and modern art coming into focus."

For Australian cultural institutions, Sood said the potential for collaboration was just getting started. Beyond buildings and the fine arts, however, he's keen on bringing more pieces of intangible culture online, and invites people to reach out to the group with suggestions.

"Things that you can't go touch or see in a museums," he said. "I'm interested to partner with institutions in Australia to tell stories about Australia ... around sport, around landscape, around biodiversity."