What do you think?
Rate this book
A Singular Vision: Harry Seidler
The power, passions and private life of the architect who shaped modern Australia - shortlisted for the 2015 National Biography Awards Harry Seidler was a key figure in international modern architecture and in the establishment of post-war modern design in Australia - a man who effectively shaped the look of modern, urban Australia. But while many know his buildings, few know his fascinating story.
Born in Austria to an affluent Jewish family, he fled the looming Nazi threat at the age of 15. Separated from his parents, Harry escaped to England as a refugee, only to be imprisoned with his older brother as an enemy alien during the war and sent to Canada. Within the confines of internment camps, architecture became both his passion and his salvation. Upon his release Harry studied in Canada and at Harvard in the United States under Bauhaus master Walter Gropius. In 1948, he agreed to come to Australia, where his family had found sanctuary, to design a home for his parents.
That dwelling, Rose Seidler House, represented a huge shift in Australian modern domestic architecture. It was followed by a succession of innovative house designs and landmark office commissions, such as Australia Square and the MLC Centre, which changed the skyline of Australia's cities.
A Singular Vision is the compelling story of a brilliant and controversial architect's extraordinary life, his vision, his influence, and his many towering achievements.
Shortlisted for the 2015 National Biography Award
'O'Neill's book deftly brings together these two sides of Seidler - the personal and professional - in a way that makes the book's main protagonist more human and more flawed but at the same time, admirable and formidable in the professional battlefield that was and continues to be architectural practice' Australian Book Review
'A wonderful biography ... sharp and illuminating ... O'Neill has breathed fresh life into Seidler's legacy ... [this book] has ample appeal for both the architecture world and general readers' The Australian Jewish News
Born in Austria to an affluent Jewish family, he fled the looming Nazi threat at the age of 15. Separated from his parents, Harry escaped to England as a refugee, only to be imprisoned with his older brother as an enemy alien during the war and sent to Canada. Within the confines of internment camps, architecture became both his passion and his salvation. Upon his release Harry studied in Canada and at Harvard in the United States under Bauhaus master Walter Gropius. In 1948, he agreed to come to Australia, where his family had found sanctuary, to design a home for his parents.
That dwelling, Rose Seidler House, represented a huge shift in Australian modern domestic architecture. It was followed by a succession of innovative house designs and landmark office commissions, such as Australia Square and the MLC Centre, which changed the skyline of Australia's cities.
A Singular Vision is the compelling story of a brilliant and controversial architect's extraordinary life, his vision, his influence, and his many towering achievements.
Shortlisted for the 2015 National Biography Award
'O'Neill's book deftly brings together these two sides of Seidler - the personal and professional - in a way that makes the book's main protagonist more human and more flawed but at the same time, admirable and formidable in the professional battlefield that was and continues to be architectural practice' Australian Book Review
'A wonderful biography ... sharp and illuminating ... O'Neill has breathed fresh life into Seidler's legacy ... [this book] has ample appeal for both the architecture world and general readers' The Australian Jewish News
- GenresArchitecture
376 pages, Kindle Edition
First published August 19, 2014
4 people are currently reading
29 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
February 26, 2014
The story of Harry Seidler may seem to be about how one man shaped his life when life seemed ready to take itself away from him. That would be to place a story there that is not quite true – and one that Harry himself struggled with for much of his life. It seems the greater story is the one that breaks free from the common thread that others are going through, yet is parallel enough to still be recognisable as a reminder for them of their own struggles. Yet it never tangles the one thread into the other, and it never mistakes itself for which thread it actually is, which string of the violin it resonates with to achieve just that tone at just that moment that improves the whole song, the whole movement, the whole longing of souls to reach profound expression with and despite each other.
Harry Seidler plays that single thread to perfection.
He carries a line to the very edge of the page, then turns the page over so the line seems to have disappeared but in fact continues on the other side.
These are the skills of an artist. They know all possible lines. They choose which appear and where and when, and they hint the relationship back to previously seen lines in such a way that the spaces created for both memory and dream appear between the lines drawn and built.
Harry was not necessarily only concerned with his own designs. He had enough space and confidence to allow the best designs by others to hold their own spaces as well. His awareness of relationships between those people who were best acquainted with these ideas and forms and practices is largely how he became as powerful as he did with his own work.
Even the support of Sydney Living Museums, as the custodian of the Rose Seidler House at Wahroonga, shows how this continues.
So the title of this book is particularly intriguing: A Singular Vision - yet encompassing many viewpoints to drawn the viewer into the essential existence of the central focus through which it is expressed. For Harry Seidler there is a Point. The Point is his own Perspective. The Vision is that others be able to share that Perspective to gain a breadth in their own lives that otherwise seem to be lived so narrowly. Harry transformed living from seeing to being in space, and the journey was an extraordinary one.
Escaping from Nazi influences was only one aspect of control that tested Harry’s early life. Finding the parallel attitudes of sides confronting, Harry had to understand something greater about freedom than merely escaping, greater about living than merely surviving. His self-discipline to carry multiple rejections internally and make something out of them from the slim opportunities that he didn’t know he was looking for, provide insight for others who are also sure they do not want to follow anyone else’s path but have yet to discover their own.
That Harry Seidler didn’t even want to come to Australia, and yet made such a name for himself, such a vision of his presence there, is a continually revealing will to not let any moment slip by without making a difference through it. Every moment is precious in the greater work of time. Every effort is made to link this time and place to a greater dream and vision coming into being.
Wealth Dynamics profile would be Mechanic.
Harry Seidler plays that single thread to perfection.
He carries a line to the very edge of the page, then turns the page over so the line seems to have disappeared but in fact continues on the other side.
These are the skills of an artist. They know all possible lines. They choose which appear and where and when, and they hint the relationship back to previously seen lines in such a way that the spaces created for both memory and dream appear between the lines drawn and built.
Harry was not necessarily only concerned with his own designs. He had enough space and confidence to allow the best designs by others to hold their own spaces as well. His awareness of relationships between those people who were best acquainted with these ideas and forms and practices is largely how he became as powerful as he did with his own work.
Even the support of Sydney Living Museums, as the custodian of the Rose Seidler House at Wahroonga, shows how this continues.
So the title of this book is particularly intriguing: A Singular Vision - yet encompassing many viewpoints to drawn the viewer into the essential existence of the central focus through which it is expressed. For Harry Seidler there is a Point. The Point is his own Perspective. The Vision is that others be able to share that Perspective to gain a breadth in their own lives that otherwise seem to be lived so narrowly. Harry transformed living from seeing to being in space, and the journey was an extraordinary one.
Escaping from Nazi influences was only one aspect of control that tested Harry’s early life. Finding the parallel attitudes of sides confronting, Harry had to understand something greater about freedom than merely escaping, greater about living than merely surviving. His self-discipline to carry multiple rejections internally and make something out of them from the slim opportunities that he didn’t know he was looking for, provide insight for others who are also sure they do not want to follow anyone else’s path but have yet to discover their own.
That Harry Seidler didn’t even want to come to Australia, and yet made such a name for himself, such a vision of his presence there, is a continually revealing will to not let any moment slip by without making a difference through it. Every moment is precious in the greater work of time. Every effort is made to link this time and place to a greater dream and vision coming into being.
Wealth Dynamics profile would be Mechanic.
Displaying 1 of 1 review