This article is from the Australian Property Journal archive
Award winning architect Harry Seidler has died at the age of 82.
Born in Vienna in 1923, Seilder fled to United Kingdom after the Nazi annexation of Austria in 1938.
He later moved to Canada and studied at architecture at the University of Manitoba. Seidler continued his studies at Harvard under Walter Gropius and Black Mountain College under Joseph Albers.
Prior to moving to Sydney in 1948, Seidler worked in New York and Brazil.
Seidler designed Australia’s first skyscraper, the 170 meter Australia Square in Sydney, which won the Royal Australian Institute of Architecture Sir John Sulman Medal in 1967.
Almost a decade later in 1976, he won Australian architecture’s top award, the RAIA Gold Medal.
Seidler was also famous for the controversial Blues Point Tower on Sydney’s harbour, which critics have labeled one of Sydney’s ugliest buildings.
Other Seidler designs include the MLC Centre, Grosvenor Place, the 43-storey Horizon Apartments, the Cove apartments, the Capita Centre.
Overseas, 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.
Seidler suffered a stroke in April 2005 and never recovered, his family said in a statement.
RAIA national president Bob Nation said Seidler will be remembered as one of Australia’s greatest talents and an iconic architect of unparalleled vision.
“His death is a sad loss, not just for Australia but the world,” Nation added.
By Nelson Yap
