Harry Seidler

Harry Seidler (25 June 19239 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 about 119 buildings (96 of which were in his home state of New South Wales) but some have since been demolished or altered in a non-Seidler manner, 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.
Early life.
Seidler was born in Vienna, the son of a Jewish clothing manufacturer. He fled as a teenager to England soon after Nazi Germany occupied Austria in 1938.
Education.
In England, he studied building and construction at Cambridgeshire Technical School. Even though he was categorised by British wartime tribunal as a "Category C – no risk" 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 camps first at Huyton near Liverpool, then 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, where he graduated with first class honours in 1944.
After working briefly for an architectural firm in Toronto, Seidler (at the age of 21) became a registered architect in Ontario, in February 1945. He became a Canadian citizen in late 1945.
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 emigrant Bauhaus teachers in the USA. He attended Harvard Graduate School of Design under Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer on a scholarship in 1945/46, during which time he did vacation work with Alvar Aalto in Boston drawing up plans for the Baker dormitory at MIT. He then studied visual aesthetics at 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 until March 1948. For almost 2 months from shortly after 20 April to early June 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 to late 1950s office buildings (such as Horwitz House in Sydney) and whose curves in plan-form were first seen in Seidler's plans from the mid 1960s and 1970s.
Life in Australia.
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 on 20 June 1948 (which was a few days before his 25th birthday), with no intention to remain in Australia, but to stay only until the house was finished. 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. 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.
In 1966, he helped lead the protests to try to keep Jørn Utzon as the principal architect of the Sydney Opera House.
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.
Personal life.
Harry Seidler travelled to Australia in 1948 on his Canadian passport (which he collected in mid-1946). By 1958, he had lived in Australia for ten years, and then sought to renew his Canadian passport but was unable to do so because he had been a naturalised Canadian who had not lived in Canada for more than three years). He became an Australian citizen in late 1958 so he would have a passport to travel for work and his honeymoon. Harry Seidler married Penelope Evatt, daughter of Clive Evatt on 15 December 1958; they had two children.
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. She co-designed the Harry &amp; Penelope Seidler House in Killara (suburb of Sydney) which won the NSW Wilkinson award of 1967.
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.
Seidler said the term "International Style" was a misnomer and so he objected to the term being used to describe modern architecture or his own architectural designs – as both changed over time as social use and building technology developed. Seidler insisted that Modernism was not a style but was in constant flux. 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 column-free space, resulting in different visual expression and openness in architecture.
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. Gropius taught that Modernism was not a style but a methodology of approach which will vary according to different regions and climates. Seidler too insisted that Modernism was not a style ""You know there's a great misconception about that modernism is a style. It isn't. It is a methodology of approach, that is in constant flux, constant change." Seidler's designs upheld a Modernist design methodology, which he considered to be an amalgam of three elements: social use, efficient building construction methods and visual aesthetics. As these three elements were in constantly changing, Seidler always insisted that he had no fixed 'style', and so as building technology and social use changed, the visual expression of his designs 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, 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 the mid 1960s and throughout the 1970s. 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."
While some commentators label Seidler's use of (unpainted) off-form concrete in the 1960s and 1970s as "brutalist" (from the French 'beton brut'), Seidler disowned the term as he was critical of British Brutalists as "pathetic imitations of Le Corbusier. The heavy monolithic structures of the 'brutalists', were the opposite of Seidler's visual aesthetic of transparency and lightness and being able to look through the architecture through the voids through the various architectural spaces.
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, the Edmund Barton Building (formerly called Trade Group Offices) in Canberra, and the Australian Embassy in Paris in the 1970s. the same Nervi- designed T beams were used by Seidler in his own Seidler Office building in Milsons Point (Sydney) completed in 1973. 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". This is why Kenneth Frampton labelled Seidler's non-house designs "isostatic architecture". In the 1970s and 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 (which was illustrated in the book "Space, Time &amp; 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 &amp; 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.
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. 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". 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. 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 the visual-spatial design principle of modern architecture being "dissolution of conventional solidity" and inter-connecting spatial vistas. Seidler said the visual essence of modern architecture was "not the ponderous solidity of traditional architecture where everything was built to four walls around a room and spaces that were finite. But rather our eyes seek transparency, lightness... being able to look through things". He said of 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". Again referring to Rose Seidler House plan, "(there are) planes of interacting solid walls and glass walls – solids and voids follow each other around, generating flows of space between them". Seidler also explains same principle for three-dimensional spatial arrangement as highly influenced by Theo van Doesburg's painting "Space-time construction #3" (1923) in which there is an interpenetration of space and spatial flow between hovering planes which creates "an openness which is so much more subtle than it is when it's totally open and which is so often done" "Architecture in recent times has been immensely concerned about this idiom of the exploitation of the interior space which involves this simultaneous viewing of things, the channeling of vistas between its elements. ... As Le Corbusier has said, 'Instead of the eye and the mind being abruptly halted by edges and containing surfaces, as had been the case in the past, they are now laid continuously on an exploration, never quite comprehending the mystery of layered and veiled space'." Seidler says of the design for his Gissing House: "in three dimensions, the fact that the eye is always tempted to look beyond and never quite experiencing it all. There is a temptation with the seeing of things that are not entirely apparent, the tantalising sense of the beyond which you in fact are denied and which entices a person to move through and try and explore an interior."
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". 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.
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. 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."