About this talk

Running time: 35 minutes

The late Harry Seidler was Australia's best known and most prolific architect, yet he resided and practised there only after 1949. Born in Vienna in 1923, he studied at Manitoba University and Harvard, and from 1946 - 1948 he worked with Marcel Breuer, followed by a short spell with Oscar Niemeyer (see Concrete Expression) in Brazil. But it was his collaboration with the Italian engineer Pier Luigi Nervi which proved a turning point in his approach both in the expression of structural form and the use of materials.

Always a modernist, building technology is paramount for Seidler. In his talk, he concentrates on just two contrasting works: the Hong Kong Club built with local materials and taking advantage of the local labour-intensive construction industry: and the Capita office tower in Sydney in which he braces the face with a concrete filled steel trust, uses rich materials, and brings Nature into a spiralling atrium.

The talk was recorded in London by Monica Pidgeon.

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