One of Australia's most prolific architects has died. Harry Seidler (1923-2006) was an unabashed modernist responsible for many of Australia's well-known public buildings including Sydney's Australia Square and Grosvenor Place, and Brisbane's Riverside Building.He was "Australia's most important architect," declares Philip Cox (who might himself be able to lay claim to that title) in a gracious obituary in The Australian. Glenn Murcutt, another who might be in the running, said Harry Seidler "brought modernism in architecture to large-scale commercial design."
Harry brought art to architecture... Whilst he wasn't everyone's cup of tea, for those in the profession that know Harry and know his work so well, he actually brought a level of architecture that very few architects have seen in this country.Pictured here is Seidler's own 1966 house at Killara, described by Cox "as one of [Seidler's] greater achievements."
LINKS: A poet in concrete - The Australian
Tributes flow for Seidler - Sunday Times
Harry & Penelope Seidler House
Harry Seidler Associates tribute
TAGS: Architecture, Obituary
1 comment:
There's a tribute to him on page 53 of today's AFR. You want me to post it over?
Says he was "influenced by 20thC modernists [Marcel] Breur [for whom he started working for free], Walter Groupius, Le Corbusier and Oscar Niemeyer, the last of whom he worked for briefly in SOuth America." At 25, he was called to Australia by his parents who had moved to Australia and need him to design them a new house. The Rose Siedler House in Turramurra, is siad to have kicked off the modernist movement here and is the only house under 50 years old to be on the books of the Historic Houses Trust.
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