Harry Seidler: Australia's Most Influential Twentieth-Century

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Abstract_

Harry Seidler is recognized as one of Australia's most influential twentieth-century architects 1. Having developed and cultivated his architecture instruction in Canada and in the United States with Walter-Gropius, founder of the Bauhaus movement, and Marcel Breuer he later on travel to Brazil to work with the flamboyant modernist Oscar Niemeyer which all combined defined his architectural foundations. This paper is concerned specifically on his arrival to Australia, using the Rose Seidler House as a case study on which the paper identifies complexities in the presentation of the historical and social context, highlights the values, design aesthetics and principles that revolutionized the Australian domestic architecture under the …show more content…

With the arrival of the mid-fifties and sixties became a period of increasing economic prosperity, creativity, originality, inventions, discovery of new materials and new technologies were explored.

Rose Seidler House_

One of the most representative cases of this “International Style” or architectural innovation that encloses these qualities which were previously mentioned is the Rose Seidler House 9.
Completed in 1950 it signalled the acceptance of Bauhaus Modernism as the basis for the development of Australian architecture.
The Rose Seidler House was in every way of foreign import at a time when Australia was struggling to find a national architectural style. Finding a builder to undertake such radical project proved to be difficult, materials were not easy to come by and there were stories of Seidler driving around building sites picking up a few bricks here, a few bricks there …show more content…

The design was so innovating and unusual in the Australian architecture in the way it merged with the landscape and the surrounding bushlands. A steep, north-facing slope with long views overlooking the Ku Ring Gai Chase National Park, a wooden valley was carved out and stabilized by fieldstones retaining walls that reach back into the bank like anchors 12. The main box hovers over this story-height step in the land, with a car port, a studio and a small entrance hall tucked in underneath. From the entrance hall, a simple, straight stair rises right in the middle of the plan beside an open light well at the back of the timber-decked terrace. Straight ahead lies another favourite Breuer device: a freestanding stone fireplace and chimney, dividing the living and dining spaces. From the family room and the kitchen to the left, it is possible to step out into the upper level of the bank.
Seidler learned his basic architectural language from Breuer, but he also learned from his mentor’s mistakes. The house at New Canaan almost failed disastrously because of an over-optimistic use of cantilevering timber-framed walls 13.
The Rose Seidler house also has timber-framed walls, but they rest on a solid reinforced concrete slab, supported on concrete walls and slender round steel columns illustrating Le Corbusian principles of the “International Style” modernism used for the Ville-Savoye. Concrete cantilevered

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