The ROAD TO SYDNEY
Life and work of architect Harry Seidler
Travelling exhibition The Road to Sydney: Life and Work of Architect Harry Seidler (1923-2006) is being prepared in collaboration with Penelope Seidler and her office Harry Seidler and Associates in Sydney, Australia. The exhibition will focus on Seidler’s key projects designed and built during his prolific career of almost sixty years during which he has designed over 180 buildings. Important works include the Australia Square in Sydney, the Australian Embassy in Paris, the Hong Kong Club in Hong Kong, and the Neue Donau Housing Estate in Vienna, the birth city of the architect.
The architect’s buildings in Sydney – from single family houses to high-rises – in its totality constitute a rare urban ensemble of a single architect’s vision. Seidler’s built work in Sydney can compete with such well-known groupings of buildings as the work of Palladio in Vicenza, Gaudi in Barcelona or Mies in Chicago. Sydney is essentially a modern city. Its built heritage is expressed almost entirely through architecture of the 20th century. The built works by Harry Seidler play a significant role in how the city is perceived, experienced, and remembered.
The Road to Sydney exhibition will trace the life and work of the architect who is credited for bringing concepts of Bauhaus and modernism to Australia. The exhibit will travel to key places in Seidler’s personal and professional life – Vienna, London, Paris, New York, Toronto, and Sydney where it is planned to be on view at the Museum of Sydney, as well as within two most prominent office towers – Australia Square and 67-storey tower of MLC Centre.
The materials to be exhibited include original architectural drawings, sketches, architectural models, large scale photographs, publications, personal correspondence, photos by Seidler, video and audio original recordings – all owned by Seidler family. The exhibition will also include a recreation of an interior space with artworks and furniture by architects, artists, and engineers such as Marcel Breuer, Josef Albers, Alexander Calder, Frank Stella, and Pier Luigi Nervi, all of who collaborated with Seidler and greatly influenced his work.
Schedule: the exhibition is planned to start its journey in fall of 2011 and show in Sydney in 2013, commemorating 90th anniversary of Harry Seidler. An exhibition catalog will be published.
