Harry Seidler b. 1923

  • Architect
Harry Seidler (1923-2006) was Australia's most significant and influential modernist architect. Born in Vienna and educated in Britain, Canada, the United States and Brazil, he arrived in Sydney in 1948. His practice, Harry Seidler and Associates, created many exceptional residences and commercial buildings from the 1950s to the early 2000s.

Harry Seidler (1923–2006) was born in Vienna but left Austria in the late 1930s. He began architectural studies at Cambridge, England, then graduated from the University of Manitoba, Canada, in 1944. He worked in various Canadian firms, then won a scholarship to Harvard University, where he studied under Bauhaus pioneer Walter Gropius and graduated M.Arch 1946. He then took a design course with Josef Albers at Black Mountain College, North Carolina, and worked with Marcel Breuer in New York and Oscar Niemeyer in Rio de Janiero. He arrived in Sydney in 1948 and won his first NSW RAIA Sulman Medal in 1952, for the Rose Seidler House, Killara (completed 1950). [MORE INFO NEEDED 1950-1975] He continued building towers and substantial houses in various Australian and international locations and won numerous national and international awards (including Gold Medals from the City of Vienna and the Royal Institute of British Architects).
Sources
—Architecture and Arts. 1954. ‘People: Harry Seidler’, April, p17.
—Architecture and Arts. 1956. ‘People: Harry Seidler, Architect’, April, p19.
—Dobney, Stephen. 1997. Harry Seidler: Selected and Current Works. Master Architect Series III. Adelaide: Images Publishing and Sydney: Craftsman House.
—Frampton, Kenneth and Philip Drew. 1992. Harry Seidler: Four Decades of Architecture. London: Thames & Hudson. (This is the main source for almost all project listings in companion Chronology of Sydney Architecture 1945-75.)
—Spigelman, Alice. 2001. Harry Seidler: Almost Full Circle: A Biography. Rose Bay, NSW: Brandl & Schlesinger.

Writers:

Davina Jackson
Date written:
2015
Last updated:
2015