Harry Seidler LifeWork by Rizzoli International Publications

Rose Seidler House Seidler’s first project in Australia, this seminal house for the architect’s parents was one of three houses for extended family built on 16 acres (6.5 hectares) of bushland sloping north (the sunny side in the Southern Hemisphere) and overlooking a broad valley of Kuring-gai Chase, a public reserve in Wahroonga, northern suburb of Sydney. This property was planned as a family compound. Fifteen-meter long plywood ramp serves a shortcut to anticipated central swimming pool, which however was never built. The rectangular, flat-roofed, and extensively glazed single-story mass of the house is supported by sandstone retaining walls on one side and slender steel round pilotis on the other that allow for an open double carport, a studio, and stairwell entrance underneath. The second floor interior is accessed from below at the center and is hollowed-out with an open terrace to let the light into the center. The freely planned interior is based on “binuclear house,” Marcel Breuer’s idea of separating the interior into two autonomous spaces for living and sleeping areas, separated by a family room. The night zone contains three bedrooms, and the day zone comprises the living room and dining room separated by a freestanding fireplace and the kitchen, which has backyard access. The suspended terrace, accessed from the ground by the ramp, connects the living room and master bedroom. The solid master bedroom wall facing the terrace features a mural inspired the work of Brazilian artist Paulo Werneck. The house is furnished with Hardoy chairs, Charles and Ray Eames dining and lounge chairs, and Knoll “Grasshopper chairs” by Eero Saarinen. Seidler brought all of the chairs and light fittings for the house with him from New York. The Rose Seidler House launched Seidler’s career and transformed Australian architecture in the process. The residence became the first structure that fully expressed Bauhaus principles in the country. In 1988, Seidler donated the dwelling to the Historic Houses Trust of New South Wales to be converted into a house museum. It has been open to the public in its original furnished condition since 1991.

This house explodes those surfaces that enclose a normal house or a space and turns it into a continuum of freestanding planes through which the eye can never see an end; you’re always intrigued what’s beyond, you can always see something floating into the distance, there is never an obstruction to your vision. It is a continuum that I believe twentieth century man’s eye and senses respond positively to that, we crave this. Harry Seidler

Design/Completion 1948/1950 Location/Address Clissold Road, Wahroonga, Sydney Use Home, Museum since 1991 Size 200 sq. m./2,150 sq. ft. Materials Concrete floor, timber superstructure, steel pipe columns, sandstone retainingwalls, plywood core ramp, mural wall designed and painted by the architect Client Mr. & Mrs. Max Seidler Photographer Max Dupain

Harry and Penelope Seidler House Seidler’s own house, designed with his wife Penelope, is located in Killara, a low-density suburb 14 kilometers (8.5 miles) northwest of central Sydney. Its rugged site, surrounded by natural bush now called Harry Seidler Reserve, is distinguished by overgrown eucalyptus trees and large rock ledges. Its terrain slopes steeply down from east to west to a creek at the base, which turns into a rushing cascade during rainy periods. The house is approached from the top of the site, where a narrow, deserted street leads to a small driveway in front of its two-car garage, which is dramatically cantilevered over the site. From a viewing platform next to the garage, the house presents itself as relatively small, as its slanted roof matches the direction of the sloping site and is perceived as a mere horizontal line that completely disguises the extensive roof. Two flights of stairs that lead to the house are accessed via a concrete bridge springing from the top of a ledge across and into the upper level of the house. The plan has a simple rectangular outline and works essentially as a two-story house broken along the middle and pulled apart by a twoand-a-half-story open shaft to create a continuous flow of space on four interconnected split levels of various heights. More public spaces are located on the sunny north side, with bedrooms and bathrooms positioned on the south side. An entrance hall shares the same level with a kitchen, dining room, and library-study that overlooks the main living room and the master bedroom suite one level below. On the next level down, there are three small bedrooms and the children’s playroom, which has direct access onto open space on the north lawn. The lowest level features a studio, laundry, and a self-contained housekeeper’s suite with its own kitchen. The terrace from this level connects with a large swimming pool built in 1976. All levels open onto ample outdoor, suspended terraces. Constructed of permanent, maintenance free materials, the Killara house has been occupied for forty-five years without any alterations. Its dramatically cantilevered, suspended concrete floors are held in position by reinforced concrete, masonry, and white concrete block walls and piers that march down the site. The sloping roof is made of concrete as well and is finished on the inside in Tasmanian oak boarding. Floors in all public areas are finished with slabs of Norwegian quartzite stone that is carpeted in the private rooms. All materials used inside and out are left in their natural state. The built-in furniture is of oak, matching the ceiling and chairs, which are designed by Breuer, Eames, and Saarinen. Artworks include sculptures by Alexander Calder, Norman Carlberg, and Charles Perry; and paintings are by Josef Albers, Ellsworth Kelly,Kenneth Noland, and Frank Stella, among others. The cast bronze sculpture “Double Knot” by Perry is situated on a concrete podium near the entry in the garden.

G. Cohen House (informally known as house at Pittwater) G. Gohen House marks the beginning of a series of Seidler’s late houses, distinguished by characteristic curved roofs over tightly organized, predominantly orthogonal plans. The house features a continuous, single-gesture roof with extensions and cut outs over various elements; the subsequent houses of this series – all explore opposing curves for more dynamic spatial effect. This holiday house is located at Pittwater, in the northern costal suburbs of Sydney with close proximity to the Pacific Ocean. The entry is preceded by a double carport with a low stop wall allowing viewing the house from the car. A gentle ramp leads to the center of single-level interior with night zone wing on the right and the day zone wing on the left. Visually the central cross axis is extended by an open light well with floorto-ceiling frameless glass wall, situated directly opposite the entry solid door which is sided by a glass vision panel at full height. The rectangle of the day zone is made up of kitchen, living, and dining demarcated by a floating wall of kitchen cabinets and freestanding fireplace. There are two curvilinear terraces– one next to the kitchen, leveled with the site, and the other cantilevers off the living, overlooking the dense bushes sloping down; a single flight stair leads to the ground. The square of the night zone has a study, three bedrooms, two bathrooms, and paved interior courtyard locked between the garage and one of the bedrooms. There is a studio space one level below with outdoor access only. The orthogonal geometry of the plan is contrasted with curvilinear privacy walls, terrace outlines, and the freeform fireplace, but most prominently by opposing wave shapes of the roof over the house and garage. The highest upward curve of the roof occurs over the living area. Over the doors height the glass walls are frameless; they reach all the way up to the ceiling to maximize the effect of a floating roof. The structure is of steel with a grid of pipe columns supporting curved roof. The curved roof is made of rolled steel beams with plasterboard ceiling. The roof covering is rolled corrugated Iron that follows the profile of the beams.

Design/Completion 1994 Location/Address Cynthea Road, Pittwater, Sydney Use Home Size 187 sq.m./2,000 sq. ft. Materials Steel structure, split-faced concrete block walls, white masonry and boarded timber walls, polished concrete paving on an insulated concrete slab, curved roof is made of steel rolledbeams, roof coveringis corrugated metal Client G. Cohen Photographer Eric Sierins

Berman House Berman House is located two and a half hours from Sydney in Joadja, a former mining village that is now a ghost town, at the edge of a pictureperfect, rocky plateau near the top of a deep valley that overlooks a winding river hundreds of feet below. Anchored into the rugged terrain, the house is approached from the back. Past a nearby, freestanding, slightly cantilevered two-car garage, it is accessed on the side, between two perpendicular wings. The public wing contains a large living room with kitchen and dining spaces, and, a half level up, the private wing has sleeping quarters with a family room, three bedrooms, and a large master bedroom overlooking a pool on the northern end. The living room is glazed on three sides, with a full-length, pier-like, outdoor terrace jutting out over the valley. The two wings are topped by wave-like, dramatic, opposing roofs, nearly baroque in appearance, achieved by rolled curved steel beams with plasterboard ceiling underneath. The roof material is rolled, corrugated iron that follows the profiles of the beams. Despite the highly expressive roof profile, the plan is still very controlled and geometric, resembling the bi-nuclear plans of Seidler’s earlier houses. Painted in white, the house presents a stark contrast to its otherwise undisturbed, natural setting. Due to the highly flammable surrounding bushland, the residence is constructed entirely of fireproof materials—reinforced concrete and sandstone. A continuous sandstone retaining wall defines the edge of the cliff and visually connects the garage, house, and swimming pool, which is situated between two large rock outcrops. Apart from its recreational function, the pool acts as a water reservoir for fighting bushfires. Roof water is collected into a central tank under the house and used for irrigation. The fluid, curvilinear language expressed in the roof profiles of the Berman House is a signature feature of Seidler’s late career. Reflecting the architect’s experience working for Niemeyer in Brazil just prior to his arrival in Australia, curves are apparent in his work beginning with the Williamson House (Igloo House) built in Sydney in 1951. In his early work, they appeared in plans, garden walls, balcony parapets, canopies, and swimming pool outlines, but became much more prominent in his G. Cohen House in Pittwater, Sydney (1994), where he first used opposing roof curves similar to the ones in the Berman House.

Design/Completion 1996/1999 Location Joadja, New South Wales Use Private residence Size 460 sq. m./5,000 sq. ft. Materials Sandstone rubble walls and fireplaces, smooth white concrete block, corrugated metal-deck roof, Alta Quartzite floors,concrete floor and suspended steel structure, curved steel roof Client Mr. & Mrs. Peter Berman Photographer Eric Sierins, John Gollings

Capita Centre (now Castlereagh Centre) Castlereagh Centre is located on an unusually deep and narrow rectangular site surrounded by twenty-five-to-thirty story buildings on three sides in the heart of central Sydney. It comprises a commercial office tower with a penthouse executive level, a landscaped forecourt, and an open ground level restaurant. The admission of adequate daylight to the site, which is only 30 meters wide by 42 meters deep, was possible only by creating a building with a full-height central atrium to serve as a light well. The atrium consists of staggered rectangular volumes, visible from the street and the ground floor, open-air lobby. Two stacks of partial floors are removed from the upper and lower portions of the tower’s facade to admit direct sunlight. The light well comprises up to one third of the total floor space on most levels. Several of its ledges serve as floating gardens, featuring large trees and shrubs. The unusual stepped, hollowing out of the tower to create the atrium generated a laterally unstable structural condition across the street facade that required strengthening the building through diagonal steel bracing. The truss’ structure is clad in metal tubular casing. Its intermediate column is omitted at the ground floor level to allow for uninterrupted pedestrian traffic. The truss is carried above the roofline to form a mast—a recognizable feature on the city’s skyline. The ground floor is left entirely open, landscaped with trees including palms as well as shrubs. A portion of the original landscape was removed to allow for a public restaurant recently designed by Harry Seidler & Associates. The building features an extensive art collection specified by the architect. There are bronze sculptures by Charles Perry and furniture by Marcel Breuer. Artist Lin Utzon was commissioned for large porcelain murals for the ground floor lobby and for the reception area of the executive floor. “Lin Utzon lived in Sydney when her father’s Opera House was in construction. Years later her work as an artist became known through the beautiful porcelain she designed for Royal Copenhagen. After visiting her studio in Denmark and seeing the large scale work for public spaces she was planning, we commissioned the porcelain mural for Capita. I see her lyrical forms as essential in animating the intricate geometries of the architecture.” Harry Seidler My first reaction to this very deep site was – why did they buy such a terrible lot of land, you can’t possibly build a decent building there. We thought twice and we said, well, if we don’t take it on, someone else will and they will make the worst job of it… Then we though – well, maybe there is a way of having windows within a site… stepping some interesting way by admitting the light into the very dark core of the lot. That gave us a key to producing a building which I think is quite unique. And I think it was a challenge which I consider we faced properly. Harry Seidler

Design/Completion 1984/1989 Location Sydney Use Office building Size 24,500 sq. m./265,000 sq. ft.; 31 floors (180 m./600 ft.) Materials Steel frame, exposed steel diagonal brace frame, granite facades Client Capita Insurance Co. Photographer Max Dupain

Ian Thorpe Aquatic Centre The Ian Thorpe Aquatic Centre, named in recognition of the local Olympic swimming champion, was built in Ultimo, an inner city suburb of Sydney under the cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s planning policy to provide community based facilities in strategic municipal precincts. This is a winning design of 2001competition, completed in 2007. The building is covered with a wave-shaped steel-framed roof that rises from the Darling Harbour and city center direction into dramatic swoop towards the Harris Street providing high spatial volume over the main 50 meter pool. The expressive roof structure resolves itself with a colonnade of triangular concrete supports along Harris Street complementing such iconic buildings as the Powerhouse Museum nearby. The built form addresses the hierarchy of Harris Street as the primary urban axis, the main thoroughfare for Ultimo, and William Henry Street as a primary view corridor. The high end walls to the north and south are glazed with u-profile frosted channel glass panels reinforce visual link towards the city skyline. The glass facade from Harris Street allows complete transparency of the entire complex which is further reinforced by the continuous ribbons of roof skylights placed directly under each roof truss. This is meant to engage the community around the aquatic center and create a sensation of being surrounded by modern city under a floating ceiling. The curved form of the roof is recalled in the freeform shapes of the protruding amenity pods and the leisure pool in contrast to the otherwise controlled rectilinear form of the three story building that also includes a therapy pool, sauna, cafes, and underground parking. The aquatic center incorporates a pedestrian stair link along with an elevator service through the northern edge of the site from Harris Street down to Pyrmont Street towards Darling Harbour with a connection to the light rail. This side features a rooftop cafĂŠ, recreation terraces, and fitness center. This pool really will become a fitting tribute and a legacy to the fantastic work that Harry Seidler has done in this city and around the country. Ian Thorpe

Design/Completion 2001/2007 Location/Address Milsons Point, North Sydney Use Public swimming pool Size 4,200 sq. m./45,000 sq. ft. Materials Concrete Structure, steel-framed roof Client City of Sydney Photographer Eric Sierins, Dirk Meinecke