Harry Seidler

Harry Seid­ler was born in Vi­enna in 1923, ar­ri­ving in Aus­tra­lia in 1948 from the United Sta­tes. He is re­co­gnised as one of Australia's lea­ding ar­chi­tects of the mo­dern mo­ve­ment and the first ar­chi­tect in Aus­tra­lia to fully ex­press the prin­ci­ples of the Bau­haus. In Aus­tra­lia and over­seas he has de­si­gned many im­portant re­si­den­tial and com­mer­cial buil­dings, in­tro­du­cing new ideas and con­struc­tion tech­ni­ques and ma­king a major cont­ri­bu­tion to the ar­chi­tec­ture of Syd­ney. He was awar­ded the RAIA Gold Medal in 1976 and the Royal In­sti­tute of Bri­tish Ar­chi­tects (RIBA) Gold Medal in 1996.

His back­ground and trai­ning was un­like that of local ar­chi­tects: he had stu­died under Wal­ter Gro­pius and Mar­cel Breuer at the Har­vard School of De­sign and at Black Moun­tain Col­lege in North Ca­ro­lina with Jo­seph Al­bers. He also worked with Breuer at his New York prac­tice and briefly with Oscar Nie­meyer in Rio de Ja­neiro. Seid­ler de­ci­ded to es­ta­blish him­s­elf in Syd­ney in 1948 after vi­sit­ing his par­ents, who had moved there.

Seidler's first house was the Rose Seid­ler House at Tur­ra­murra (1948). The glass wal­led, ele­va­ted cu­bi­form house was re­vo­lu­tio­nary and in­tro­du­ced the Bau­haus prin­ci­ples of Gro­pius and Breuer into Aus­tra­lia for the first time. Seid­ler con­ti­nued to present these con­cepts to the Aus­tra­lian pu­blic over the fol­lo­wing years with a se­ries of ex­tre­mely well de­tai­led hou­ses, exe­cu­ted eit­her in the box-like form of Le Cor­bu­sier or the bi-nuclear 'H' plan of Mar­cel Breuer, with li­ving and sleeping areas se­pa­ra­ted by an entry hall. Along the way many im­portant batt­les were fought and won with coun­cils over is­sues re­la­ting to de­sign (the but­ter­fly roof), plan­ning and zo­n­ing re­gu­la­ti­ons. Ex­pe­ri­men­ta­tion with dif­fe­rent forms was made pos­si­ble with the in­tro­duc­tion of ad­van­ced struc­tu­ral tech­ni­ques. Since the early 1960s the geo­metric curve has been a re­cur­ring theme in Seidler's work, with the qua­drant being a fa­vou­red form. This can be seen to good ef­fect in the later hou­ses de­tai­led on Seidler's web­site.

With his apart­ment buil­ding projects, Seid­ler in­tro­du­ced ideas new to Syd­ney and Aus­tra­lia. Based lar­gely on Eu­ro­pean and Ame­ri­can apart­ment types, the split ac­cess, in­ter­lo­cking units with a di­vi­ded plan, dou­ble height li­ving rooms and mez­za­nine floors, took ad­van­tage of Sydney's spec­ta­cu­lar views from all main rooms. The Ar­ling­ton Apart­ments at Ed­ge­cliff are a good ex­ample. The ca­re­fully com­po­sed fa­ca­des of these buil­dings dis­play ab­stract, asym­metri­cal, ba­lan­ced pat­terns and are in­flu­en­ced by the Eu­ro­pean art mo­ve­ments of the 1920s and 1930s.

Seidler's of­fice buil­ding de­ve­lop­ments in Aus­tra­lia and over­seas are si­gni­fi­cant. In Syd­ney they were, in a num­ber of in­stan­ces, the first major buil­dings to cont­ri­bute usa­ble, pu­blic spaces back to the city, with the in­te­gra­ted de­ve­lop­ment of of­fice and re­tail space, par­king and a pu­blic plaza. One of the first and most im­portant of these was Aus­tra­lia Square (1961), which also saw the start of a fruit­ful part­nership with the Ita­lian en­gi­neer Pier Luigi Nervi. It re­pre­sen­ted an ad­van­ced use of con­crete, with the tower con­struc­ted of a pou­red in place con­crete core with pre-cast units ser­ving as both form­work and fi­nish for the sur­roun­ding con­crete frame.

There are good ex­am­ples of Seidler's re­si­den­tial and com­mer­cial work in Can­berra. His first com­mis­sion outs­ide Syd­ney (the Bow­den House) ex­hi­bits his de­sign phi­lo­so­phy of the early pe­riod. Me­dium den­sity hou­sing at Camp­bell is re­pre­sen­ta­tive of his post-war in­ter­na­tio­nal style apart­ment block de­ve­lop­ments, while the La­ke­view town­hou­ses are a good later ex­ample of his em­pha­sis on the geo­metric curve and qua­drant. The large, pre-cast con­crete Bar­ton Of­fices is an im­portant of­fice buil­ding lo­ca­ted near the Par­lia­men­tary Tri­angle in Bar­ton.





Seidler's La­ke­view town­hou­ses, 127 Ho­pe­toun Cir­cuit, Yar­ral­umla (1982).
Hou­ses pro­fi­led on this site
Bow­den House, 11 Nor­th­cote Cre­scent, Dea­kin (1951-52)
Camp­bell Group Hou­sing, Bla­mey Cre­scent, Camp­bell (1964)
'Lakeview', 127 Ho­pe­toun Cir­cuit, Yar­ral­umla (1982)
Other works in Can­berra
Can­berra South Bow­ling Club, Aus­tin Street, Grif­fith (1959)
Gar­ran Hou­sing, Gil­more Cre­scent, Gar­ran (1968, de­molis­hed 1999)
Ethos House, Ains­lie Ave­nue, City (1970)
Bar­ton Of­fices, Kings Ave­nue, Bar­ton (1973)
Other no­ta­ble works in Aus­tra­lia
1940s/50s
Rose Seid­ler House, Tur­ra­murra, NSW (1948)
Rose House, Tur­ra­murra, NSW (1949)
Waks House I, Nor­th­bridge, NSW (1949-51)
Mel­ler House, Cast­le­crag, NSW (1950)
Lowe House, Mos­man, NSW (1950)
Wil­liam­son House, Mos­man, NSW (1951)
Hut­ter House, Tur­ra­murra, NSW (1952)
1960s
It­haca Gar­dens apart­ments, Eliz­a­beth Bay, NSW (1960)
Lend Lease House, Mac­qua­rie St, Syd­ney, NSW (1961)
Aus­tra­lia Square, Syd­ney, NSW (1961)
Blues Point Tower apart­ments, North Syd­ney, NSW (1961)
Mul­ler House, Port Hacking, NSW (1963)
Ar­ling­ton apart­ments, Ed­ge­cliff, NSW, (1965-66)
Harry and Pe­ne­lope Seid­ler House, Kil­lara, NSW (1966-67)
1970s
Gis­sing House, Wahroonga, NSW (1971-72)
MLC Centre, Syd­ney, NSW (1972)
Seid­ler Of­fices and Apart­ments, Mil­sons Point, NSW (1973)
Ring­wood Cul­tu­ral Centre, Ring­wood, VIC (1978)
1980s+
Gros­ve­nor Place, Syd­ney, NSW (1982)
Wa­ver­ley Civic Centre, Wa­ver­ley, VIC (1982)
Han­nes House, Cam­meray, NSW (1983)
Ca­pita Centre, Syd­ney, NSW (1984)
Shell Head­quar­ters, Mel­bourne, VIC (1985)
QVI Of­fice Tower, Perth, WA (1987)
Ha­mil­ton House, Vau­cluse, NSW (1989)
Ho­ri­zon Apart­ments, Dar­ling­hurst, NSW (1990)
Mea­res House, Birch­grove, NSW (1994)
Gil­ho­tra House, Hun­ters Hill, NSW (1995)
Ber­man House, Jo­a­dja, NSW (1996)


Sour­ces: Peter Blake, Ar­chi­tec­ture for the New World: The Work of Harry Seid­ler, Syd­ney, 1973 and Jen­ni­fer Tay­lor, Aus­tra­lian Ar­chi­tec­ture Since 1960, RAIA, 1990.