Harry Seidler (1923–2006) was born to a Jewish Viennese family in 1923. Clearly he was still in primary school when the Nazis closed down the amazing Bauhaus Academy in Berlin in 1933, yet he went on to become the first architect to build according to Bauhaus modernist rules in Australia. So we have to ask: how did he survive the Nazi Holocaust? How did he adopt Bauhaus beliefs and architectural practices? And how did he create most of his major projects in Australia?
Soon after Nazi Anschluss of Austria in 1938, Harry’s parents thought they better get their son to a safe haven. Luckily older brother Marcel was already working in London and met Harry when he arrived on a boat train in 1938. The lad went to a technical school in Britain but in the darkest days of British anti-Semitism, British authorities imprisoned him as an enemy alien on the Isle of Man. In May 1940, Harry had been only 16 and was not a danger to any one.
Worse followed when he and others were involuntarily shipped to Quebec and imprisoned over there. Yet miracles do occur - Harry Seidler was released to study architecture at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg! The irony of an ex-pat Austrian being taken to Canada as a British prisoner and learning enough English to gain a first class honours degree in architecture was not lost on Seidler.
The truly inspirational years came when he moved south into the USA. Seidler studied at Harvard where was taught by two of the great names of Bauhaus, visionary-cum-director Walter Gropius and master Marcel Breuer. He then studied design under the painter Joseph Albers, another great Bauhaus master, in Black Mountain College North Carolina. Seidler did some work for Finnish architect Alvar Aalto at MIT, before taking up the post of chief assistant to Marcel Breuer in New York. This was a young man in a hurry, wanting to learn everything from the old Bauhaus experts, themselves German-speaking migrants in an English speaking country.
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Breuer designed house,
Wolfson Trailer House Salt Point NY, 1941
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Mies van der Rohe designed house,
Stability finally arrived when Seidler joined his parents in Australia in 1948. Soon after settling down in Sydney, Seidler designed and built important domestic homes eg a rather impressive glass-walled house for his mother, the Rose Seidler House (1949-50) on the north shore suburb of Turramurra. It became a display space for contemporary art and the furniture of Charles Eames and others. Had Seidler been uncertain about what sort of reception he was going to have in this strange, new, hot country, he could relax. Even though the name Bauhaus would have been largely unknown here, lots of people asked Seidler to design their news homes and his career in Australia looked certain.
When Walter Gropius came to lecture at the Royal Australian Institute of Architects conference in Sydney in 1954, he made special efforts to visit his old Bauhaus connections in Australia, especially Seidler!
His own home, the Harry and Penelope Seidler House, was built in 1967. It was also on the leafy north shore, in Killara. The concrete floors and roof, with rubble-stone retaining walls and fireplace reminded Australians of Bauhaus homes that had been designed postwar by Marcel Breuer in New York State and Massachusetts. Or Mies Van Der Rohe’s Bauhaus homes in Illinois and New York. Like the masters, Seidler’s homes used strong geometry, the best use of concrete and other modern materials, floor to ceiling glass windows, cantilevered bedrooms and gallery spaces, strong balconied fronts and blade walls.
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Seidler designed house
Rose Seidler house Sydney, 1950
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Soon after Nazi Anschluss of Austria in 1938, Harry’s parents thought they better get their son to a safe haven. Luckily older brother Marcel was already working in London and met Harry when he arrived on a boat train in 1938. The lad went to a technical school in Britain but in the darkest days of British anti-Semitism, British authorities imprisoned him as an enemy alien on the Isle of Man. In May 1940, Harry had been only 16 and was not a danger to any one.
Worse followed when he and others were involuntarily shipped to Quebec and imprisoned over there. Yet miracles do occur - Harry Seidler was released to study architecture at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg! The irony of an ex-pat Austrian being taken to Canada as a British prisoner and learning enough English to gain a first class honours degree in architecture was not lost on Seidler.
The truly inspirational years came when he moved south into the USA. Seidler studied at Harvard where was taught by two of the great names of Bauhaus, visionary-cum-director Walter Gropius and master Marcel Breuer. He then studied design under the painter Joseph Albers, another great Bauhaus master, in Black Mountain College North Carolina. Seidler did some work for Finnish architect Alvar Aalto at MIT, before taking up the post of chief assistant to Marcel Breuer in New York. This was a young man in a hurry, wanting to learn everything from the old Bauhaus experts, themselves German-speaking migrants in an English speaking country.
Wolfson Trailer House Salt Point NY, 1941
Farnsworth near Plano Illinois, 1946-
Stability finally arrived when Seidler joined his parents in Australia in 1948. Soon after settling down in Sydney, Seidler designed and built important domestic homes eg a rather impressive glass-walled house for his mother, the Rose Seidler House (1949-50) on the north shore suburb of Turramurra. It became a display space for contemporary art and the furniture of Charles Eames and others. Had Seidler been uncertain about what sort of reception he was going to have in this strange, new, hot country, he could relax. Even though the name Bauhaus would have been largely unknown here, lots of people asked Seidler to design their news homes and his career in Australia looked certain.
When Walter Gropius came to lecture at the Royal Australian Institute of Architects conference in Sydney in 1954, he made special efforts to visit his old Bauhaus connections in Australia, especially Seidler!
His own home, the Harry and Penelope Seidler House, was built in 1967. It was also on the leafy north shore, in Killara. The concrete floors and roof, with rubble-stone retaining walls and fireplace reminded Australians of Bauhaus homes that had been designed postwar by Marcel Breuer in New York State and Massachusetts. Or Mies Van Der Rohe’s Bauhaus homes in Illinois and New York. Like the masters, Seidler’s homes used strong geometry, the best use of concrete and other modern materials, floor to ceiling glass windows, cantilevered bedrooms and gallery spaces, strong balconied fronts and blade walls.
Rose Seidler house Sydney, 1950
Seidler designed house
Harry and Penelope Seidler house Sydney, 1967
Harry and Penelope Seidler house Sydney, 1967
Seidler was asked to design a number of modern houses and housing blocks; many of these displayed the very clever interlocking sections, originally devised by Le Corbusier. Corbusier had allowed for generous, double height living-rooms and mezzanine floors inside, rather simple flats. Sydneysiders were prepared to live in flats, but only if the flats suited the Australian life style.
The design of office towers in the City, incorporating shops, parking and public plazas, was watched carefully by the citizens. People were dazzled and horrified, in equal numbers. The first, designed together with Italian structural engineer, Pier Luigi Nervi, was the circular Australia Square tower in Sydney, completed in 1967. The public squares included cafes alongside fountains, and displayed sculpture by Alexander Calder and tapestries by Le Corbusier.
So what was the relationship between Seidler and the Bauhaus Academy in Germany? Although Seidler had been too young to study at Bauhaus himself, he was exactly the right age to become part of the Second Generation of Bauhaus students. That is, he studied with the original Bauhaus masters who had themselves been transplanted to the USA - especially Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer, Mies van der Rohe and Joseph Albers. Thus when Seidler moved to Australia in 1948, he was in the perfect position to bring Bauhaus concepts and methods to the southern hemisphere, quickly influencing the shape of local architecture here.
The design of office towers in the City, incorporating shops, parking and public plazas, was watched carefully by the citizens. People were dazzled and horrified, in equal numbers. The first, designed together with Italian structural engineer, Pier Luigi Nervi, was the circular Australia Square tower in Sydney, completed in 1967. The public squares included cafes alongside fountains, and displayed sculpture by Alexander Calder and tapestries by Le Corbusier.
So what was the relationship between Seidler and the Bauhaus Academy in Germany? Although Seidler had been too young to study at Bauhaus himself, he was exactly the right age to become part of the Second Generation of Bauhaus students. That is, he studied with the original Bauhaus masters who had themselves been transplanted to the USA - especially Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer, Mies van der Rohe and Joseph Albers. Thus when Seidler moved to Australia in 1948, he was in the perfect position to bring Bauhaus concepts and methods to the southern hemisphere, quickly influencing the shape of local architecture here.