Harry Seidler

Harry Seidler
Born (1923-06-25)25 June 1923
Vienna, First Austrian Republic
Died 9 March 2006(2006-03-09) (aged 82)
Sydney, Australia
Cause of death Stroke and septicemia
Citizenship Australian
Occupation Architect
Known for modern houses and skyscraper designs
Children Timothy and Polly

Harry Seidler, AC OBE (25 June 1923 – 9 March 2006) was an Austrian-born Australian architect who is considered to be one of the leading exponents of Modernism's methodology in Australia and the first architect to fully express the principles of the Bauhaus in Australia.

Seidler designed more than 180 buildings[1] and he received much recognition for his contribution to the architecture of Australia. Seidler consistently won architectural awards every decade throughout his Australian career of almost 58 years across the varied categories – his residential work from 1950, his commercial work from 1964, and his public commissions from the 1970s. He was a controversial figure throughout his long career as he regularly publicly criticised planning authorities and the planning system in Sydney.[2]

Early life

Seidler was born in Vienna, the son of a Jewish textile manufacturer. He fled as a teenager to England soon after Nazi Germany occupied Austria in 1938.

Education

Harry Seidler (right) with Walter Gropius in Sydney 1954

In England, he studied building and construction at Cambridgeshire Technical School. Even though he was a refugee fleeing the Nazis, because he was born in Austria, on 12 May 1940, he was interned by the British authorities as an enemy alien, where he was in internment camp on the Isle of Man before being shipped to Quebec, Canada and continued to be interned until October 1941, when he was released on probational release from internment to study architecture at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada, where he graduated with first class honours in 1944.[3]

After working briefly for an architectural firm in Toronto, Seidler was registered as an architect in Canada in early 1945. He became a Canadian citizen in mid 1946.

Although he was ten years old when the Bauhaus was closed, Seidler's analysts invariably associate him with the Bauhaus because he later studied under emigrent Bauhaus teachers in the USA. He attended Harvard Graduate School of Design under Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer on a scholarship in 1945/46,[4] during which time he did vacation work with Alvar Aalto in Boston drawing up plans for the Baker dormitory at MIT. He then attended Black Mountain College under the painter Josef Albers in mid 1946.

Early career outside Australia

Seidler then worked as the first ever assistant to Marcel Breuer in New York from late 1946-mid 1948.[3] For 3 months in mid 1948, Seidler also worked in Rio de Janeiro with the architect Oscar Niemeyer, whose use of external sunshades was echoed by Seidler in his mid-late 1950s office buildings (such as Horwitz House in Sydney) and whose curves in plan-form were first seen in Seidler's work from the mid 1960s-1970s.

Life in Australia

Rose Seidler House, Wahroonga, Sydney, 1948–50
Australia Square, Sydney, 1961–67

Seidler's parents migrated to Sydney in 1946, and (while he was working for Breuer in New York) in early 1948, his mother wrote to him to commission him to come to Sydney to design their home. Seidler arrived in Sydney in July 1948, with no intention to remain in Australia, but to stay only until the house was finished.[5] The house became known as the Rose Seidler House (1948–1950), in Wahroonga, in remote bushland of a suburb on Sydney's Upper North Shore. This project was the first completely modern domestic residence to fully express the philosophy and visual language of the Bauhaus in Australia and won the Sulman Award of 1951. From the huge publicity of this house, others approached Seidler to design their homes. With so many clients and his enjoyment of the Sydney climate and harbour views, Seidler decided to stay in Australia.[6] The Rose Seidler House became a house-museum in 1991.

In the 1960s Seidler again broke new ground with his design for the Australia Square project (first designs 1961, plaza building 1962-64, tower 1964–67). At the time, the Australia Square tower was the world's tallest light weight concrete building. The design introduced the concept of a large public open plaza and prominent artworks to office towers in Australia.[3]

In 1966, he helped lead the protests to try to keep Jorn Utzon as the principal architect of the Sydney Opera House.[7]

He was a founding member of the Australian Architecture Association. In 1984 he became the first Australian to be elected a member of the Académie d'architecture, Paris and in 1987 was made a Companion of the Order of Australia, an honour which he accepted in his trademark suit and bowtie. Over the years Mr Seidler was also awarded five Sulman Medals by the Royal Australian Institute of Architects, as well as the Royal Australian Institute of Architects Gold Medal in 1976, and the Royal Gold Medal by the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1996.

"For 50 years Harry Seidler has played a vital role in international architecture. His work is widely recognised as an original and intensely creative contribution to the architecture of the second half of the 20th Century."
— Dennis Sharp in his introduction to the book Master architects: Harry Seidler

Personal life

Seidler's home in Killara, New South Wales.

Seidler married Penelope Evatt, daughter of Clive Evatt on 15 December 1958, they had two children.

Harry Seidler travelled to Australia in 1948 on his Canadian passport (which he obtained in mid 1946). Since he was a naturalised Canadian, who by late 1958 had not lived in Canada for more than ten years, he was unable to renew his Canadian passport, so Seidler became an Australian citizen in late 1958 so he would have a passport to travel to Japan on his honeymoon.[8]

Seidler enjoyed photographing architecture around the world and some of these are documented in his photography book The Grand Tour. He also enjoyed skiing.

Penelope Seidler, herself an architect, gained her Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Sydney and joined Seidler and Associates in 1964 as architect and financial manager.[9] She co-designed the Harry & Penelope Seidler House in Killara (suburb of Sydney) which won the NSW Wilkinson award of 1967.[10]

On 24 April 2005, Seidler suffered a stroke from which he never fully recovered, and died from septicaemia in Sydney on 9 March 2006 at age 82.

Modernism and principles of design

Horizon Apartments, Darlinghurst, Sydney, 1990–98

Seidler said the term "International Style" was a misnomer and so he objected to the term being used to describe modern architecture or his work - as both the later changed over time as social use and building technology developed. Seidler would explain that Le Corbusier's 1920s modern architecture had columns placed 6 metres apart, whereas by mid-1980s pre-stressed concrete technology allowed 34 metre columbn free space - resulting in different visual expression and openness in architecture.[11]-

Seidler's work shows a mix of influences from four great modern masters under whom he studied or worked with: Walter Gropius, Marcell Breuer, (artist) Josef Albers and Oscar Niemeyer. Seidler maintained relationships with his four mentors even after he came to Australia. Seidler was instrumental in having Walter Gropius address the RAIA Convention in Sydney in 1954. Seidler collaborated with Marcell Breuer for the Australian Embassy in Paris (as Breuer had a Paris office) and Seidler was Breuer's project architect for the Torin Factory in Penrith NSW in the 1970s. Seidler commissioned Josef Albers artworks for MLC Centre in the mid-1970s. Seidler also maintained a close friendship with Oscar Niemeyer through letters and visits to Rio de Janeiro.

Gropius' teachings had a big influence on Seidler. Seidler's designs upheld a Modernist design methodology, which he considered to be an amalgam of three elements: social use, building technology and visual aesthetics. He always insisted that he had no fixed 'style', since these three elements were in constant flux, and so his work constantly evolved throughout his 57 years of designing in Australia.

The form of Seidler's work changed as building technology changed: from his timber houses in the 1950s (many of which echoed Breuer's bi-nuclear house form), to reinforced concrete houses and buildings in the 1960–1980s,[12] and the development of curves (in plan shapes) with advances in concrete technology in the 1980s and later, as well as developments in steel technology that allowed for curved roofs in the 1990s onwards (e.g. Berman House). Seidler is on record (in 1980) as stating that Oscar Niemeyer's interior of the Boavista Bank in Rio of 1946 (which Seidler would have seen in 1948) with its interacting curves must have influenced Seidler's use of interacting curves in exterior playground and retainer walls from mid 1960s and throughout 1970s.[13] Upon celebrating 50 years of architectural practice in Australia, Seidler noted that developments in building technology allowed for more richness of form in his then soon-to-be completed Horizon apartment tower: "I could not have built Horizon twenty years ago...in earlier building technology (the way one could) span distances, it was very limited. (But Horizon) is made (possible) by devices such as pre-stressed concrete which is ...economic and quick. And that also gives you greater freedom of the shapes that you can use. Nowadays we can span huge distances and to do so (by) not just putting steel mesh or something into the concrete but to put steel, high tensile steel wire into it and pull it tight and that makes it easy to span distances and give this kind of change of shape of a building which would have been very difficult to achieve any other way." [14]

In the 1960s and 70s Seidler worked with the Italian structural engineer Pier Luigi Nervi for the design of the Australia Square and MLC Centre office towers, in Sydney, his own Seidler Office building in Milsons Point (Sydney), the Edmund Barton Building (formerly called Trade Group Offices) in Canberra, and the Australian Embassy in Paris in the 1970s. Seidler later worked with Nervi's successor Mario Desideri for the Riverside Centre in Brisbane.

Seidler learnt from Gropius (as one of the 3 required elements of good architecture) to devise efficient "systems" for constructing buildings - other than for individual houses, this involved "making things easy to build in accordance with a system that allows repetition of identical elements".[15] This is why Kenneth Frampton labelled Seidler's non-house designs "isostatic architecture".[16] In the 1970s-1980s, Seidler used the geometry of the quadrant which connects the straight line to the curve and allowed for structural beams of the same size spanning across the radius of the quadrant. This is seen in Seidler's design for the Australian Embassy in Paris and Karralyka (previously called Ringwood Cultural) Centre.

Seidler saw parallels of good modern architecture with the underlying structural geometry of baroque architecture, especially the designs of Italian architect Francesco Borromini[17] (which was illustrated in the book Space, Time & Architecture by Sigfried Gidieon which Seidler read as an architecture student). Seidler's designs from 1969 onwards often displayed opposing negative and positive quarter-circle curves (e.g. retaining garden walls of Pettit & Sevitt exhibition house, Westleigh, 1969, and Condominium Apartments, Acapulco 1969-70). From the 1980s, Seidler often incorporated plans with flamboyant curves (e.g. Hannes House, Hong Kong Club) and some commentators have labelled this as the start of Seidler's "baroque" period.[18]

Seidler's visual approach to two-dimensional and three-dimensional spatial arrangement was consistent throughout his whole career and reflected what Seidler learnt from his visual aesthetics teacher Josef Albers. Seidler stated he learnt more about design from Albers than he did at any architecture school.[19] Albers stated that designs which visually had a high centre of gravity were more dynamic than solid earth bound designs- which is why Seidler used (for non-tower designs) "cantilevered slabs hovering in mid-air which seem to 'negate' the fact that mass is something solid and heavy". Seidler would claim "aesthetically we want dematerialisation".[20] Seidler, following Albers, also shunned traditional symmetry or grid-like modern designs as static (and thus dull), instead Seidler "offset" opposing elements to create "scintillation" and "visual tension" to be more visually dynamic and thus interesting to the eye [21]- which is seen in the window pattern of Seidler's Blues Point Tower (1958–62) and three-dimensionally in the syncopated balcony arrangement of this Horizon Tower (1995–98). Seidler articulated his visual-spatial aesthetic which includes "dissolution of conventional solidity"[22] in his first work, the Rose Seidler House. "This house explodes the surfaces that enclose a normal house or space, and turns it into a continuum of free standing planes, through which the eye can never see an end, you are always intrigued what's beyond, you can always see something floating into the distance, there is never an obstruction to your vision, it is a continuum (of space), that I believe 20th century man's eye and senses responds positively to that, we crave this".[23]

In 1991, Seidler acknowledged that his first house (Rose Seidler House) which was built of timber, despite the north facing sunshades "is generally too vulnerable to temperature changes...I didn't fully appreciate the intensity of the Australian sun".[23] Thus, later in his career, he sought to use more thermally stable materials like reinforced concrete and to respond to the Australian climate by the extensive use of sunshades and flamboyantly-shaped rain protecting canopies on his skyscrapers, (such as Grosvenor Place, Riverside Centre, and QV1), large covered balconies in his houses, as well as shaping his designs to maximize views and enjoyment of the outdoors from inside.[24]

Collaboration with visual artists

Seidler was a frequent and enthusiastic collaborator with visual artists in the creation of his buildings. While his artist collaborators include famous or notable figures such as Alexander Calder, Frank Stella, Lin Utzon, Norman Carlberg, Charles O. Perry (the last two were fellow but later student of Josef Albers), Helen Frankenthaler, Sol LeWitt and many others, by far the most important of the collaborators was his mentor Albers. Seidler included works by Albers – perhaps the single person most influential on his design philosophy – in a number of projects (notably the MLC Centre with 'Homage to the Square' (later repurchased by the Albers Foundation, and Albers' last commissioned-design 'Wrestling' on the eastern side of MLC Plaza). Seidler also arranged in 1966 for the Australia Square tower ground lobby to display tapestries by Le Corbusier and Victor Vasarely - these were replaced in late 2003 by the Sol LeWitt mural. Seidler also selected and paid for Australian artworks to be shipped in 1977 to be ready to be displayed for the opening of the Australian Embassy in Paris in early 1978.[25] As Paul Bartizan indicates in his obituary tribute to Seidler, these works of art were not mere 'plop art'; they were really planned to be integrated with and complementary to the buildings into which they were placed: "In many of his projects, Seidler worked with artists whose works became an intrinsic component of his designs."[1]

List of buildings

MLC Centre, Sydney, 1972–75
Wohnpark-Neue-Donau, Vienna, Austria, 1993
Ian Thorpe Aquatic Centre, Ultimo, Sydney, 2001–07

Honours

Literature

by Harry Seidler

about Harry Seidler

See also

References

  1. 1 2 "Modernist architect Harry Seidler dies in Australia". World Socialist Web Site. 2006-06-20. Retrieved 2008-01-07.
  2. ↑ "Modernist architect Harry Seidler dies in Australia". 20 June 2006. Retrieved 14 June 2013.
  3. 1 2 3 "Biography: Harry Seidler AC OBE LFRAIA". architecture.com.au. The Australian Institute of Architects. 2005-05-06. Retrieved 2008-05-02.
  4. 1 2 3 Dennis Sharp (2006-03-14). "Harry Seidler: Innovative modernist architect". Retrieved 2008-01-07.
  5. ↑ "Harry Seidler interview (oral history)" with Janis Wilton 1982, audio recording online at State Library of New South Wales http://www2.sl.nsw.gov.au/archive/discover_collections/society_art/seidler/interview.html.
  6. ↑ Harry Seidler interview with Alan Saunders "By Design" ABC (Australian Broadcaasting Corporation) Radio National, 18 July 1998; Harry Seidler "In Search of an Australian Style" article in Bulletin magazine Sydney issue entitled "Why Australia is the Best Place in the World to Live" Pages 60-64 at 60-61
  7. ↑ "The man who fixed the 'plain illegal' Sydney Opera House". Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved 31 January 2016.
  8. ↑ Harry Seidler and Penelope Seidler interviewed by Craig McGregor on 11 February 1990. Craig McGregor MS7949 collection - Oral History and Folklore collection, National Library of Australia, Canberra. Bib id 6416295
  9. ↑ "Penelope Seidler". Specifier. 2007. Retrieved 2008-01-07.
  10. ↑ Penelope Seidler filmed interview at the house for Monocle magazine, February 2016 entitled "Sydney Residence: Harry and Penelope Seidler House. February 2016" online at https://monocle.com/film/design/sydney-residence-harry-and-penelope-seidler-house/ . Film duration 6:51mi
  11. ↑ Harry Seidler oral history with Ken Henderson, 21 April and 21 May 1986, National Library of Australia oral history collection, cassette TRC 2173 transcript page 3 notes "modern architecture set out to solve problems of the time and it must, by definition remain in constant flux, it is not a style, it fought against stylism,.. to call it a style...is an utter misunderstanding of what it set out to do. To demonstrate that one can still say that we may like or still love buildings Le Corbusier built in the 1920s, but they could not be reasonably built today (ed 1986) because technology has taken giant steps - I mean, you have office buildings that have columns at six metre centres. In other words, to span long distances was not feasible, not technically applicable to that time, it just wasn't known how to do that, economically or efficiently. Therefore those buildings by today's standards are outmoded." (Page 4) "pre-stressed concrete was ..not normally used in building (in early twentieth century). Whereas today, you can build buildings that have giant spans. We just built a building in Hong Kong that has 34 meter spans.. from one side to the other.. (hence no need for) columns everywhere"; Harry Seidler essay “Planning and architecture at the end of our century” heading ‘Opposition to Modern architecture’ in Harry Seidler: Four Decades of Architecture by Kenneth Frampton and Philip Drew (Thames & Hudson, London & New York, 1992) page 381; Harry Seidler, ‘Movement Against Style’ Keynote address at Royal Australian Institute of Architects' International Convention 'Challenge of Excellence', Melbourne, 9 March 1992 (video at Deakin University) or online at https://vimeo.com/16877925; "in the mind of the architect" Australian Broadcasting Corporation TV series episode 1 (2000) see full transcript at http://www.abc.net.au/arts/architecture/ep_trn1.htm
  12. ↑ Harry Seidler filmed illustrated lecture "Habitat, Its Detail and Totality "University of New South Wales (UNSW), 8 May 1980 (online)
  13. ↑ Philip Drew, 'Ethic and Form' article in Space Design (Tokyo) 1981 (81/02) pages 75-90 includes photo of the Niemeyer's Boavista bank interior with this observation. The same photo of Niemeyer's bank interior is in photo archives section of Seidler office on back shows Harry Seidler's own hand-written note "Seidler must have been influenced by the INTERACTIVE CURVES of this interior, especially in his later work". Given the photo appears in Philip Drew's article published in issue 2 of 1981, Seidler's handwritten note probably dates to 1980. The first use of interacting curves is seen in the free forms and part ellipses of the children's playground walls of the NSW Housing Commission Apartments, Rosebery, NSW 1964-67 (see Peter Blake, Architecture for the New World: The Work of Harry Seidler, 1973, Sydney: Horwitz, Stuttgart: Karl Kreamer at 38-39), later curves seen in Seidler's Condominium Apartments, Acapulco 1969-70, (Blake, op.cit, 39) , interacting quadrant curves in screen and reataing walls of Pettit & Sevitt exhibiton house, Westleigh NSW 1969 (see Blake, op.cit at 35). Seidler's flamboyant curved design for Hong Kong Club started in 1980 - date noted in book Harry Seidler: Four Decades of Architecture by Kenneth Frampton and Philip Drew (1992, Thames & Hudson, London & New York) at 206.
  14. ↑ Express TV, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 7 October 1998.
  15. ↑ Harry Seidler filmed illustrated lecture "Principles in the Mainstream of Modern Architecture"University of New South Wales (UNSW), 26 June 1980 (online); Harry Seidler filmed illustrated lecture "Consequence of Design and Detail "University of New South Wales (UNSW), 24 April 1980 (online); Peter Blake "Architecture for the New World. The Work of Harry Seidler" (Horwitz, Sydney; Wittenborn, New York; Karl Kraemer Stuttgart, 1973) pp12-20
  16. ↑ Kenneith Frampton "Isostatic Architecture 1965-91" Pages 85-111 in Harry Seidler: Four Decades of Architecture by Kenneith Frampton and Philip Drew (Thames & Hudson, London & New York, 1992).
  17. ↑ Harry Seidler illustrated filmed lecture: "Form Relations in Baroque and Modern Architecture (Part 1)" University of New South Wales (UNSW) 17 April 1980 (online); Harry Seidler illustrated filmed lecture: "Form Relations in Baroque and Modern Architecture (Part 2)" University of New South Wales (UNSW) 1 May 1980 (online); Peter Blake "Architecture for the New World. The Work of Harry Seidler" (Horwitz, Sydney; Wittenborn, New York; Karl Kraemer Stuttgart, 1973) pp38-40; Vladimir Belogolovsky, "Harry Seidler: Lifework" (Rizzoli, New York, 2014) pp31-41
  18. ↑ Kenneith Frampton, '1965-1991 Isostatic Architecture' Pages 86-111 in Harry Seidler: Four Decades of Architecture by Kenneth Frampton and Philip Drew (1992, Thames & Hudson, London & New York) at page 95. Later followed by Vladimir Belogolovsky, Harry Seidler Lifework (2015: Rizzoli, New York) at page 39
  19. ↑ "Harry Seidler: A Dialogue with editor Yoshio Futagawa" GA HOUSES 69 (January 2002) pages 42-47 at 43.
  20. ↑ Harry Seidler, "Painting Toward Architecture" in Architecture (RAIA journal forerunner to Architecture Australia) 37(10) [Oct 1949] page 120-21; Harry Seidler "Our Heritage of Modern Building" in Houses, Interiors and Projects (1954: Sydney, Associated General Publications. Reprint: 1959, Horwitz) Pages x-xi of ix-xi. Same essay later reprinted in ""Harry Seidler: Houses & Interiors 1" (Images Publishing, Musgrave VIC, 2003) Pages 10-15 at page 11. Peter Blake, Architecture for the New World. The Work of Harry Seidler (Horwitz, Sydney; Wittenborn, New York; Karl Kraemer Stuttgart, 1973) pp21-23
  21. ↑ Harry Seidler filmed illustrated lecture "interaction of architecture and the visual arts" University of New South Wales (UNSW), 10 April 1980 (online); Harry Seidler "Our Heritage of Modern Building" in Houses, Interiors and Projects (1954: Sydney, Associated General Publications. Reprint: 1959, Horwitz) Pages x-xi of ix-xi. Same essay later reprinted in ""Harry Seidler: Houses & Interiors 1" (Images Publishing, Musgrave VIC, 2003) Pages 10-15 at page 11. Harry Seidler, "Painting Toward Architecture" in Architecture (RAIA journal forerunner to Architecture Australia) 37(10) [Oct 1949] pp. 119-124; Peter Blake "Architecture for the New World. The Work of Harry Seidler" (Horwitz, Sydney; Wittenborn, New York; Karl Kraemer Stuttgart, 1973) pp28-33
  22. ↑ Harry Seidler filmed illustrated lecture "Principles in the Mainstream of Modern Architecture" University of New South Wales (UNSW), 27 June 1980 (online)
  23. 1 2 Harry Seidler quote from Rose Seidler House – the House that Harry built Review, Australian Broadcasting Corporation TV, 14 April 1991
  24. ↑ Harry Seidler, "In Search of an Australian Style" in the "Why Australia is the best place in the world to live" issue of The Bulletin (Sydney) 24 October 1989, pp. 60–4
  25. ↑ Harry Seidler Project Report: 1975-1977; 'Paris Art', being correspondence with textile artists concerning proposed purchase of artworks for the Australian Embassy Paris. Harry Seidler Collection, Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales, Call No.: MLMSS 7078/15); ABC TV news footage from 30–31 July 1977,
  26. ↑ "Ageing luxury: Brisbane's Hilton reaches milestone", Brisbane Times (7 June 2012)
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