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  Deconstructing Harry REPORTER, HELEN DALLEY: In the late 1940s a brash young architect emigrated to Australia, bringing with him the cutting edge ideas of the International Modernist movement. Harry Seidler gave expression to those new notions in this Sydney house, designed for his parents. Today the Rose Seidler house has been adopted by fans of the '50s, who gather here annually to celebrate that period. In 1947, it was a total look. Seidler had imported all the furniture from New York, and even designed and painted this wall mural himself. PETER WATTS, HISTORIC HOUSES TRUST: It caused a revolution in architecture in Sydney. There had been a few modernist houses before this one. But this one was so dramatically modern and it imported whole lots of ideas from America. It was making no compromises to what was the public perception at the time about what a house should be about, this cosy family-oriented safe haven. It's wasn't that at all, it was very outward looking. REPORTER: It introduced the open plan, glass-walled, flat-roofed house that would dramatically alter forever the face of Australian neighbourhoods. In no small way, both this house and Harry Seidler himself would change the course of architecture in this country. WATTS: It caused a huge stir. Harry's always good at generating controversy and so it caused quite a stir in the press which meant that there was streams of visitors every weekend that would pour down the driveway over here to come in to look at the house. HARRY SEIDLER: From Switzerland to Germany to America everybody had pictures of this house in Tumaruma, as the German's used to call it. You know the suburb was always spelt out and it intrigued everyone. REPORTER: Fifty years on, the Rose Seidler house is still much revered, for it's pure embodiment of modern design ... indeed it was officially listed by the historic houses trust in 1988, making Harry Seidler the first twentieth century architect to join such luminaries as Francis Greenway. WATTS: I mean, he is an extraordinarily important architect in Australia and internationally. The huge body of work that he's accomplished, the very fine work puts him in that category. EDMUND CAPON: When you walk around Sydney and I naturally and instinctively take in buildings, most of the time and very quickly the buildings that are going to last emerge. And I would say that Harry Seidler's buildings have that quality to survive and last and that's not only physically but aesthetically as well. SEIDLER: Architecture is the highest form of art by definition. The mother of all arts it says - a lot of people do buildings. That doesn't mean they put up architecture. There's a huge difference. And the missing link is, is it a work of art? REPORTER: Harry Seidler has dedicated himself for 50 years to producing works of art. But not art for art's sake, rather art that flows out of simple yet functional design. Form always follows function, said the Modernists, a fundamental philosophy for Seidler... one from which he has never deviated. PROFESSOR NEVILLE QUARRY: He is formidable. Someone who is certain about what they are doing is formidable. There don't seem to be any cracks in his armour. People talk about cutting down the tall poppy well Harry has never been accused of being a poppy, he might be a prickly pear that people want to cut down. REPORTER: Born in 1923 in that most baroque of European cities, Vienna, Harry Seidler was brought up with an appreciation of fine architecture and good design ... and even as a young boy had a sense of the new emerging from the old. SEIDLER: Vienna was of course the very cradle of modernism I think. I was fascinated by new things in Vienna such as the so-called Hochhaus, it was a high building, only 12 storeys but it had the most wonderful staircase which is still there, all glass-enclosed and it looks very up-to-date. REPORTER: What drove you to become an architect? SEIDLER: Well I think it had a lot to do with my mother. She was an ambitious woman. My mother had the aim to be in the forefront of things and she had an architect who came to design each room. Everything was especially designed, handmade, to go into the apartment to make your home. REPORTER: One building in particular had a lasting impression on the teenage Seidler. Vienna's secession building, an art gallery built by a group of anti-establishment painters, bearing an inscription which has driven Harry Seidler all his life. "To each time its art, to art its freedom." With Hitler's annexation of Austria, Harry and his brother Marcel were sent to England to escape. For the next decade Harry would be without roots, shunted to different countries until finally settling in Australia. The trauma of those wartime experiences was revisited in 1969 when, as an established architect, he was commissioned to design a memorial to the Holocaust in Sydney. SEIDLER: The compound is in the shape of an oval. And on the inside formed into the concrete walls around it are the names of the horror extermination camps. And the pathway into this memorial is made of these small stones that are used in European cities and the roads of which the victims would have been herded along. REPORTER: But did it have special significance for you having come from ... having fled Nazi Germany? SEIDLER: You know, I probably would have been one of the victims if I hadn't been fortunate enough to leave the country, leave Europe at the time. REPORTER: But at the beginning of the war he was living in the comfort of an aristocratic family in England, studying building at the local school. But that secure new life was shattered when he was declared an enemy alien, and interned on the Isle of Man. SEIDLER: It was something that sort of hit me really very hard. Suddenly the police came and said you gotta come with us. What? Why? Oh you're an enemy alien, born in enemy territory. I was 16 and half, not even 17 years old and I couldn't understand. REPORTER: He was then sent to a prisoner of war camp in Canada for the next 18 months ... a bleak environment in which Harry shared a tin shed with 4,000 others, never knowing when the nightmare would end. Released on parole, he began studying architecture at the University of Manitoba, only to be told he had to undergo military training ... for the allies. SEIDLER: So within a matter of three weeks of being released from a camp where I was guarded with machine guns, people wearing British uniforms, I was wearing an officer cadet uniform, the same as my guards ... how absurd does the world get, you know. REPORTER: So how does that impact a boy of 16 or 17? SEIDLER: Well the one thing it made me realise is that politicians, bureaucrats, they're not very bright are they? I mean, they're not to be trusted. Because this was a demonstrably stupid decision. REPORTER: The conclusion arrived at back then about petty authority figures making ill-informed decisions has driven many a battle in Seidler's working life as an architect. SEIDLER: When war finished I was fortunate enough to get a scholarship to Harvard and everyone was full of enthusiasm, you know the war is finished, let's make a better world. That was in the air somehow. REPORTER: His teachers at Harvard included Walter Gropius founder of the revolutionary Bauhaus school of design in Germany. Gropius urged his students to break new ground and look at the parallels between art and technology. The practicality of a design had to be as important as its artistic statement, and in that way, the modernists thought they would transform lives by creating a better man-made world. SEIDLER: Technology and its progress has a direct influence on art and its progress, they walk hand in hand. In other words art and architecture go together ... and that's what's been happening in my work throughout all these years. PENELOPE SEIDLER: To him it wasn't at all about anything fashionable. It wasn't the current vogue or anything like that. It was a way of life. REPORTER: After working as an apprentice for no wages for design master Marcel Breuer in New York, Seidler was lured to Australia. SEIDLER: My mother was the shrewd one because she wrote me a letter saying we want to commission you to design us a house. When you're 25 and the thought of a captive client like a mother was irresistible. So that's what brought me here and I've stayed ever since. REPORTER: Just four years after arriving in his adopted homeland, the Rose Seidler house won Harry the Sulman medal in 1951, the highest accolade in NSW for architecture, and the first of many awards over the next 50 years. With it, came numerous domestic commissions and a profile that has seen Harry rarely out of the spotlight. By the late '50s he swept up a beautiful 18-year-old, Penelope Evatt, 15 years his junior. She was to become the love of his life. PENELOPE SEIDLER: I don't think I'd ever met anybody before like that who had such a passion for what he was doing. And a sort of belief that he was going to change the world and those ideas, his philosophy of life and work was very appealing to me I think. REPORTER: Married in 1958 the Seidlers designed their own house in a dramatic bush setting ... many believe it to be his residential masterpiece. PENELOPE: His aim is to build buildings which will look good next century not just today. And that's why I feel, I like it more now. It looks tough and I think it'll go on looking that way ... it's a statement. Not many architects live in statements. REPORTER: It was this very public statement that ensured Harry's notoriety evermore. Blues Point Tower, built in 1961 on Sydney Harbour foreshores, has long been his most controversial building, arousing passions amongst Sydneysiders for nearly four decades. VOXPOP: It is a very brutal building that doesn't fit in with its surroundings. VOXPOP: I think Blues Point Tower is like an experiment for somebody finding their way. VOXPOP: I think it is very plain, a bit boring and a bit tall for the area. VOXPOP: It's jail-like, all the colours are wrong and no light. SEIDLER: It's one of my best buildings. They don't know what they're talking about. REPORTER: So there's no regrets there? SEIDLER: None whatsoever. GENIA MCCAFFERY, NORTH SYDNEY MAYOR: Harry. I'd describe him as an architect's architect. It's very hard to find an architect that doesn't say Harry is a, well, a brilliant architect. My problem with Blues Point Tower is that it doesn't care about its context. It sits out there as this very tall building on a point of the harbour where I think we should be looking at low-scale buildings. REPORTER: In the late '50s there was talk of rezoning McMahon's Point for waterfront industry. Seidler and a group of architects jointly came up with this plan for high density living -- a series of tall buildings stepping down towards the water. But Seidler's 24-storey tower was the only part of the plan that proceeded. A fact for which many remain grateful. MCCAFFERY: As a resident of North Sydney and now McMahon's Point, I think that would have been a disaster. Because McMahon's Point is a fabulous place to live and the reason people love living there is the range of building types and the streetscape you get there. SEIDLER: Now I bet you in 50 years McMahons Point will contain the kind of density of population in tall buildings as we predicted in 1957. REPORTER: So you have no sympathy for the critical view? SEIDLER: Well that is probably true... You know, I think it's unfortunate that it's there like a shag on a rock, it's the only building of its kind in the neighbourhood and that's probably to some extent undesirable of course. But not when you think of what the intention was. KEN MAHER: Prior to East Circular Quay it was the building everyone loved to hate. I think strangely enough many architects think it is a building of great merit and I think it is a building of quite a lot of merit. We probably wouldn't build it there now but I do think it has done him a disservice. WATTS: I think yes people resent him because of that one building and that seems to me to be very unfair. Because when you look around at the huge body of work that he's done ... it seems unfortunate that for the one building he's been so pilloried. REPORTER: But while making his mark with the large-scale, Seidler was also working on buildings that were much more low-key. This ski lodge at Thredbo ... was an engineering feat, one of the first lodges built in the resort, yet still today one of its most sturdy. SEIDLER: I've been skiing ever since I was six. And I've always loved skiing to this day. And to me it was a real challenge to try and make something that has the character and the atmosphere of these charming villages in Austria and other parts of Europe. But obviously translated into an idiom that's more part of our own time. REPORTER: He'd first skied here in the early '50s, long before a resort was created. These days at the age of 75, he still returns to the slopes. REPORTER: You are someone who I imagine lives and breathes architecture, is that right? SEIDLER: Mmm I do. REPORTER: When you come skiing is that a time when you do sort of block it out? SEIDLER: Oh absolutely. And then skiing in the hills and the snow and the challenge of going down the hill you know beautifully that takes over it just takes over your whole being and I certainly don't think about buildings then. REPORTER: After five decades of practising his art, Seidler is still excited by the possibilities. His work is his obsession. What are your favourite buildings? SEIDLER: The next one. REPORTER: The next one? Always the next one? SEIDLER: I think so. I don't particularly look back and say this one's better than that, I like them all. But I always look forward to the next challenge. REPORTER: The essence of a Seidler design is captured in what is still today an icon of the modern Australian cityscape -- Australia Square. JAMES GROSE, ARCHITECT: Australia Square is the most significant, I believe, high rise building in Australia. In fact, I suspect that there would be very few architects in Australia, probably none that could design that building now. It's a very handsome building. REPORTER: The building caused a sensation in the '60s when it was built for another immigrant, Dick Dusseldorp, the dynamic head of Lend Lease. For many years Dusseldorp was Seidler's main patron. SEIDLER: He spelt out the program. He said if the building takes longer than a week per floor to build you're wasting your time. So you devise something that I can build a floor a week without scaffolding. REPORTER: With the help of Italian engineer Pier Luigi Nervi, Seidler created a truly radical design with its circular tower centred on a people-friendly plaza. The artwork of Le Corbusier and Alexander Calder completed this tour de force. It changed the face of downtown Sydney. VOXPOP: A common criticism is that he does fairly inhumane buildings. You've only got to look around this plaza to see that Seidler is responsible for some of the most publicly populated buildings in the whole city. REPORTER: Seidler's assault on Sydney's skyline had well and truly begun ... the showpieces were the MLC Centre, Grosvenor Place and the Capita Centre. PROF. QUARRY: The Capita building is an example of Harry's really innovative thoughtfulness. That in this tiny slot jammed between other city buildings he has managed to create a series of external spaces which have got foliage and trees in them so within that building there is really an almost jungle experience going through them. CAPON: I think Grosvenor Place is a very serious building. You don't go in there to have fun, you go there to work and make lots of lolly, it's got that kind of temperament, its a hugely functional building. REPORTER: Praise for the buildings aside, Seidler's desire to pull down some of the older surrounding buildings angered many. MAHER: Harry's view is that there is a new city which can emerge which needn't be constrained by the traditional city but that puts him somewhat at odds with a lot of authorities, with the more popular view of the city and a desire to keep the heritage of the city. Harry would argue that heritage is an important issue but perhaps that it's overrated or buildings of poor quality are given protection they shouldn't have. REPORTER: Sydney was not the only city where Harry would have an impact -- in the '70s he made a bold statement with his design for the Australian embassy in Paris, he also moved into Hong Kong with this building. Back in Australia, Seidler helped Brisbane rediscover its river with the Riverside Centre and in Melbourne he won the sought-after commission to design the headquarters of Shell. And in typical Seidler fashion, he took on the city council when it dared question his design. KEVIN GOSPER: The local government council were worried that the configuration of the building would contribute to wind on the corner so I arranged a meeting, bringing Harry Seidler down from Sydney to meet with the then lord mayor. It was a disaster. Harry had a walking stick at the time and we met in the lord mayor's office and what I thought was going to be a calm, logical meeting started off with Harry jumping to his feet and saying this is typical of any local government authority, You're thinking in the past and then with his walking stick he banged it on the lord mayor's table! PROF. QUARRY: He is a complex personality. On the one hand people fear him, on the other hand, they revere him. And he can be an attacker as well. He is well known for his scorn of petty bureaucrats and administrators, he doesn't suffer the restrictions of public authorities at all, if they are against him they are inevitably wrong and he doesn't mind telling them. REPORTER: Sydney's Hunters Hill Council incurred Seidler's wrath when it objected to his plans for this house, ludicrously claiming, in Harry's view, that it was too small and that the curved roof was out of character with the area. The council backed down in the end but it proved a long and costly fight. SEIDLER: We delegate what the total environment is like to the totally unskilled of local government. They do the planning for us to decide on the aesthetics, whether something's beautiful or not or acceptable to be built. We delegate that to the unworthy I call them. REPORTER: The unworthy, you're very scathing of councils in that regard. SEIDLER: I've had 50 years of nothing but pain and insults from that side of society. Unbelievable, you know, the gall these people have of telling me what's beautiful and what's not. PENELOPE: Its sort of a sad stage ... when you can't put your name on plans when you put them into council because you know it's going to create problems. So you have to be anonymous. REPORTER: So Harry doesn't put Seidler and Associates on plans when they go to council? PENELOPE: Not for houses no. REPORTER: What incenses Seidler most is the failure to be daring, that he sees written large in Australian urban design ... our obsession with imitating the past, rather than looking to the future. SEIDLER: The general public taste tends to be towards safe-looking and traditional looking furniture and traditional looking houses. In Australia it's the kind of thing that makes people want to have federation style homes at the end of the 20th century. It's a bit absurd really. REPORTER: Is there anything wrong with that? SEIDLER: Yes, I think it hasn't happened in the past. That people disown their own time. They always wanted to exceed and make things better than they were before. REPORTER: But increasingly the modernist ideals of an architect like Harry Seidler have been questioned, principally their perceived failure to address the street and work with the existing fabric of our cities. His latest skyscraper, the striking Horizon building, aroused the ire of local residents because of its height. MCCAFFERY: I accept it's a beautifully designed building. He's a very good architect. But in that context next to SCEGS Darlinghurst school which is a historic school. You have lovely little 30s apartment buildings. It's not a good neighbour, it doesn't care about the community. SEIDLER: Obviously the area is full of small buildings but we've reflected those small buildings in the street architecture that we did build low buildings around the site with a swimming pool and tennis court within, that somehow have the same stepping profile and scale as the terrace houses on the other side of the street. So it isn't fair to say that it doesn't fit in. We tried very hard to make it fit in. The fact that the building is tall and offers the most stupendous outlook in all directions of Sydney Harbour is something that is obviously wanted by people who look for homes in that area. REPORTER: Architect James Grose liked the building so much that he bought an apartment there and is moving in with his young family. GROSE: I think the Horizon is by far the best apartment building that we've got in Sydney. I mean it will be the benchmark for many, many years for apartment buildings. REPORTER: One building in Sydney that's become a bete noire, yet doesn't bear Seidler's name, is at East Circular Quay. Dubbed the Toaster by Sydneysiders, it is arguably the most universally disliked development in decades ... and begs the question -- what does Harry Seidler think of it? SEIDLER: Its a short squat thing that stops people seeing the Opera House from Circular Quay, and I think that's an outrageous idea for us to have so little regard for the consequences of giving away public land to build this outrageous development right next to it, I think that shows that something is amiss. We don't really appreciate great works of art. REPORTER: Harry Seidler's international standing was confirmed when, in 1996, he became the first Australian to receive Britain's royal gold medal for architecture, joining such legends as Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier, and Jorn Utzon. To many, it seems a major oversight that such a highly decorated architect as Seidler should have been overlooked when it came to commissioning designs for the Sydney Olympic Games. SEIDLER: I remember seeing the minister in charge of the Olympics at a function and I said you know it would be nice if maybe you would trust me to build a bus shelter for the Olympics. Oh no, he didn't think that was very funny. He just turned on his heels and walked away. PROF. QUARRY: I think an opportunity should have been created for him. When all is said and done he has a terrific record in Australia. He lives in Sydney. To have the Games in Sydney and not have a building which represents Harry at his best seems to be more than an oversight. It's a tragedy. REPORTER: Seidler's biggest project now is not in Australia but in Vienna where he's building a housing community along the river Danube on top of an eight-lane expressway. SEIDLER: And that I think has been the most exciting thing that's ever been offered to me in way of a commission. I was offered the opportunity to design not just a building but a totality of a whole suburb virtually. REPORTER: When you started out as a young architect, obviously you and the other modernists wanted to change the world. Have you changed the cities, the skylines of the world as you had once hoped? SEIDLER: No I don't think so. It's a drop in the bucket the effect one really has, certainly in this community. I've found more hope that the community I'm building in Vienna will have some greater validity as far as a city is concerned. REPORTER: But Harry Seidler's 50-year architectural journey begins and ends in Australia. His own office complex and harbourside apartment are in many ways the pinnacle of his lifelong commitment to Modernism. But beyond that ... on the wider horizon of our cityscapes, Harry Seidler's legacy will endure well into the next millennium. PROF. QUARRY: You can't take him out of the equation of Australia's modern architectural history. He's firmly embedded in it and he touches lots of it and he's affected lots of architects along the way so we would be a vastly different place without the input from Harry and we would be worse off. REPORTER: For Seidler, however, the great moments in twentieth century architecture have all happened overseas. Asked to nominate his five favourite buildings, he cited Frank Lloyd Wright's "Falling Water", this little known church in Michigan designed by his mentor Marcel Breuer, former Harvard classmate IM Pei's East wing of the national gallery in Washington, Pei's pyramid at the Louvre in Paris, and Frank Gehrey's Guggenheim museum in Bilbao. REPORTER: Why do you choose them? SEIDLER: Aesthetically above all they reflect our time. They give a higher awareness to being in this world. It's like listening to beautiful music or listening to poetry and that's what really is the essence of those buildings that I respect so much. They are poetic. Beautifully conceived and they give deep rooted pleasure. REPORTER: And is that what you have tried to do? SEIDLER: Indeed yes. Click here for a printer-friendly version. |
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