Harry Seidler's Umbrella: Selected Writings on Australian Architecture and Design is an incisive and personal collection of writings on architecture and design by writer and editor Joe Rollo. From an up-close account of Jørn Utzon's re-engagement with the Sydney Opera House and a poetic rendering of the design and making of the landscape at TarraWarra Estate and Museum of Art, to encounters with Harry Seidler and a walk through the multi-billion dollar Victorian Desalination Plant, Joe Rollo opens readers' eyes to an exciting way of looking at the built world. Written in the easy, straightforward and engaging language for which he has become known, the book brings clarity and passion to considerations of the problems and pleasures of looking at architecture and design in Australia.

Joe Rollo is an architecture writer and editor. He reviewed architecture for The Age newspaper, Melbourne, from 1994 to 2015. He has written extensively for newspapers and magazines, including The Australian, The Weekend Australian Magazine, The Spectator Australia, The Australian Financial Review Magazine, The Bulletin and Wallpaper* magazine. He is the founding editor of C+A, an international magazine of concrete architecture, and the author of three previous books: Contemporary Melbourne Architecture, a collection of reviews from The Age (1999); Concrete Poetry: Concrete Architecture in Australia (2004);and Beautiful Ugly: The Architectural Photography of John Gollings (2011). He holds a Master of Architecture degree (honoris causa) from RMIT University. He was born in Sicily and lives and works in Melbourne.