Earlier this year, we were delighted to attend the Harry Seidler retrospective exhibition at the San Marco Art Centre (SMAC) in Venice, newly opened in the extraordinary Procuratie building, renovated by David Chipperfield. It's been some time since a comprehensive exhibition on Seidler has occurred in Australia, and in the absence of a dedicated Architecture museum in this country, it's no surprise. The SMAC visit was a nice opportunity to revisit Seidler's work, and be reminded of his influence then...and enduring relevance now.
Migrating Modernism. The Architecture of Harry Seidler
While the 19th Venice Architecture Biennial focused on contemporary themes (some say: esoteric and conceptual): "Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective", the Seidler exhibition is an exploration of built architectural works, the role of art in his work and life, and a personal story of Harry Seidler's journey from Europe via the UK, Canada, and the US, to Australia in 1948. Alongside the artists, teachers, fellow architects and engineers who influenced him, the works on display follow the expression of his collaborations in the spaces that continue to define Sydney: our skyline, workplaces, public places and homes. The exhibition also celebrates Seidler's international commissions in Mexico, France, Hong Kong, and his native Austria.
Great moments of joy we experienced during this exhibition included the playful images of Seidler as a young man, after the Second World War. Then his triumphant Rose Seidler House, his first built commission - a Sydney classic. It goes without saying that the models of Blues Point Tower and Australia Square are stunning and his impact on Australian architectural form is unique. While other architects of the 1940s read about modernism or were exposed to it through travel, Seidler was the only architect to practice in Australia with direct Bauhaus experience, having been taught by founder Walter Gropius, then working for Marcel Breuer In New York, and spending time with Oscar Niemeyer in Brazil. Among notable collaborations on display are those with Josef Albers, Alexander Calder, Helen Frankenthaler, Frank Stella, Lin Utzon, Sol LeWitt and Italian structural engineer Pier Luigi Nervi. And how easily we forget Seidler's incredible buildings were created on butter paper, tracing paper and blueprints worked over and over and over again, with no CAD in sight there is a freeness of the hand which computer renders will simply never produce. Penelope Seidler's extraordinary needlework of Seidler buildings are stunning in real life: up close these are outstanding works of precision, discipline and art. Having ourselves tried needlework in the past, we are in awe of anyone who can create such beauty and perfection with hand, eye and thread.
Against these moments are ones of reflection: of the internment jacket assigned to Seidler and his brother Marcell during the Second World War, a reminder of the suspicion levelled at Jews and their treatment as 'enemy aliens' during that time, even as teenage students. Remarkable too are the letters, including fondness between Jørn Utzon and the Seidlers, who advocated for Utzon's reinstatement to the Sydney Opera House project. Tools of the trade are also on show including rulers, pencils, camera, papers and diaries to illuminate the story of a life immersed in creativity, and in designing spaces that could improve the lives of citizens.
Part of Seidler's story is one of a great partnership with wife, architect Penelope Seidler (nee Evatt) - designer, life partner, artist, collector and the financial nous behind Seidler & Associates. In their family home, Harry & Penelope Seidler House, Killara, you see the fruits of their joint aesthetic - a house that is now widely regarded a brutalist masterpiece that balances modernist principles with the permanence of materials, a concert with the Australian bush, and a warm interior filled with art from mentors, collaborators and artists they have long-admired.
Relevant today
Harry Seidler remains profoundly relevant in Australia and globally and his legacy endures not just in his built work, but in the ideas he championed and the standards he set for Australian architecture.
While themes in architecture are sometimes affected by fashionable concepts, Instagram interiors and re-appropriated by Pinterest-driven clients, architects continue to try to address important issues of environment, place, materiality, durability and design integrity. In this sense, Seidler's work remains timeless and relevant.
He brought modernism to an Australian context, and did so at-scale. He was unapologetically international in style. (1) People often reacted to his work strongly - either positively or negatively - but over time greater appreciation can be had for the developers who allowed Seidler's vision to proceed, despite the risks or heated public opinion. It created a new Australia. His skyscrapers in particular remain some of the clearest articulations of high modernism in Australia. Contemporary architects still admire his work as a benchmark for precision, spatial clarity, and structural expression even if interiors, furniture or uses evolve.
Harry Seidler also advocated for public good through architecture. He was not alone in this of course, as Robin Boyd and others wrote and spoke often and loudly about the role of architecture in making everyday life, our urban environment and suburbs better. Seidler spoke about housing, and decried the lack of quality and permanence in Australian residential design. He had strong ideas about civic architecture and believed architecture had a moral responsibility to uplift its users, even if it meant confronting bureaucracy as he had done with countless local councils. (2) His commitment to public buildings and social housing such as those in Sydney and Vienna, demonstrate the use of intelligent density for affordable housing. (3) This is now ever-relevant in the face of housing shortages, suburban sprawl, and the proliferation of planning laws that have not resulted in more beautiful spaces.
Long before the term “global citizen” was in vogue, Seidler lived it. His European sensibility, education in Canada and the US and work in Europe before arriving in Australia, brought an open mindset, and produced a unique foresight that only a globally-connected professional can have. Seidler’s refused to bend sometimes made him a polarising figure but his work stands largely unmarred by the whims of fashion. Every entry into the lobby of Australia Square still elicits a gasp of delight. Every moment in the view of an apartment balcony in the Horizon brings a the city we love closer to us. A walk through any Seidler-designed home brings a feeling of both rationality and beauty, comfort and fun, colour and shadow.
The Migrating Modernism was timed to coincide with the 19th Architecture Biennale, opening on 9 May, 2025 and it closes on 20 July. The work of remarkable Korean landscape architect Jung Youngsun is also on the how among the 16 galleries in the building, open for first time in 500 years. It is significant that one of Australia's most iconic architects, Harry Seidler, his story and his works, was chosen for this program. It was curated by Ann Stephen from the Chau Chak Wing Museum and Paolo Stracchi from the University of Sydney’s School of Architecture Design and Planning, with curatorial advisor Nikolaus Hirsch.
(1) Frampton, Kenneth & Drew, Philip, Harry Seidler: Four Decades of Architecture, Thames and Hudson, London, 1992.
(2) Seidler's Scapbooks, State Library of NSW.
Words and exhibition images by Kathryn Franco, unless otherwise stated.
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Harvard Graduate School of Design, Walter Gropius's class, 1946 - photographer unknown. Clockwise: Gropius in centre, Seidler with arms folded, Ira Rakatansky, John C. Parkin, Norton Polivnik, Irving J. Maitin, Alvaro Ortega-Abondano, I.M. Pei with black-vest, back to camera, John 'Chip' Harkness, two unidentified students and Royal McClure.
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Books featuring Harry Seidler
