Harry Seidler will be remembered as one of Australia’s greatest talents and an iconic architect of unparalleled vision, the Royal Australian Institute of Architects (RAIA) said today. RAIA National President Bob Nation said his death is a sad loss, not just for Australia but the world.
The high profile and often controversial architect died in Sydney overnight after a difficult period following his stroke last year. Over the past 57 years he has designed major award-winning buildings in Brisbane, Canberra, Darwin, Melbourne, Sydney and Perth, and regional centres, as well as others offshore in Europe, South America and Asia.
“Harry was a modernist master, like his teachers and mentors Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer, Alvar Aalto and Oscar Niemeyer,” Mr Nation said. “He studied and worked with the best in the world and brought that knowledge and skill with him to Australia. As a result, he has had a lasting and profound affect on Australian architecture from his arrival here in the late 1940s. That influence will live on in his buildings for many years to come and through those architects he mentored.”
“Harry’s buildings have changed the Sydney skyline in particular - Australia Square, the MLC Centre, Grosvenor Place, the 43-storey Horizon Apartments, the Cove apartments, the Capita Centre, and the controversial Blues Point Tower. Love them or hate them, they are an intrinsic part of the Sydney that we all know and appreciate.”
Overseas, Mr Seidler is known for the Australian Embassy in Paris, the Hong Kong Club and Offices, a community for 2,500 people in Vienna, as well as buildings in Acapulco and New York.
“Since 1948, Harry has amassed a body of built works that is highly respected by the profession,” Mr Nation said. “Along the way he has collected more than 40 architecture awards, including five RAIA Sir John Sulman Medals and four RAIA Wilkinson Awards in Australia, the Gold Medal from the Royal Institute of British Architects, and Australia’s top architecture prize – the RAIA Gold Medal in 1976. His influence in shaping the architects and the architecture of Australia, through his role as a pioneer and advocate of the modernist movement, has been hugely significant.”
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RAIA National Media / PR Advisor Trish Croaker 0408 756 163 |
