Harry Seidler exhibition

As part of the Sydney Architecture Festival, Harry Seidler: Painting Toward Architecture, opens at the Museum of Sydney on Saturday 1 November 2014.
Looking at the architect’s innovative and sometimes contentious career, the exhibition explores his revolutionary office towers, houses, apartments and public buildings, as well as his enthusiasm for art, architecture and engineering.
Celebrating a life that spanned nearly nine decades, this comprehensive exhibition explores the world events that shaped Seidler’s personality and his total dedication to Modernism. Included are paintings, sculpture, albums, photographs, scrapbooks, films, sketches, original drawings, diaries and personal correspondence from Harry and his wife Penelope Seidler’s private collection.
Curated by New York-based Vladimir Belogolovsky of Intercontinental Curatorial Project and Sydney Living Museums’ Dr Caroline Butler-Bowdon, the exhibition reveals Seidler’s creative achievements and intriguing life. It follows the wartime journey from his native Austria to England, Canada, the United States, Brazil and, finally, Australia, where he settled in 1948, eventually becoming recognised as one of the country’s most famous architects.
“Harry drew his inspiration from a multitude of sources — architecture, painting, sculpture, technology, geometry, history and so on,” says curator Vladimir Belogolovsky. “His collaborative approach was multidimensional and consequential, always striving for logic, the highest quality of construction and, of course, beauty. Step into the exhibition and you will find yourself inside Harry’s creative world; it is like being inside of a painting, painting toward architecture.”
Seidler completed more than 160 projects during his career and the exhibition highlights several including Australia Square, Sydney’s first serious skyscraper; Rose Seidler House, his first commission in Australia; Harry and Penelope Seidler House, the Seidler family home and the Australian Embassy in Paris.
The exhibition will also feature special objects that give insight into Harry’s personal journey, says co-curator Dr Caroline Butler-Bowdon, “From his family photographic album of Vienna before the Anschluss to his personal diaries during internment in England and Canada, his university thesis to his notes from Albers’ famous Black Mountain College in North Carolina, and the enormous collection of letters, postcards and minutiae of his annual overseas grand tours.”
In addition to the exhibition, Seidler Focus Tours will offer exclusive access into Australia’s most iconic architectural designs of the 20th century.
WHERE: Museum of Sydney on the site of first Government House, cnr Phillip and Bridge Streets, Sydney
WHEN: opens Saturday 1 November 2014
TICKETS: Free with museum entry (adult $10, child/concession $5)
For more information, visit slm.is/seidler

Penelope Seidler

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