“The inbuilt joinery was all designed for the house. Harry designed the sofa which was manufactured here. In Australia, Harry rented a waterfront flat in Point Piper and turned it into a studio and an office – and he built his career from there. In the early 1950s he designed predominantly house; in the mid 1950s he started venturing into apartment buildings including Ithaca Gardens apartments in Elizabeth Bay, completed in 1960.”
“In 1959, he teamed up with Dick Dusseldorp who founded Lendlease and they started working on Australia Square, which was finished in 1966; and then the practice went on to design office buildings and apartment towers. Later in his career, Harry went back to Vienna and the Seidler practice designed a major housing estate on an old industrial site on the Danube River in Vienna. He designed the Australian Embassy in Paris in the early 1970s, and Sydney has eight or nine Seidler skyscrapers throughout including Capita Centre and Blues Point Tower.
On the original plans, where stone is featured, it was originally meant to be bricks. But Harry didn’t realise you had to get in a line for bricks, being rationed and limited post war.
“Because he couldn’t get bricks, he used the stone instead from the site,” said Pearson.
The home’s two wings are joined by a service area; with many of the Seidler-designed homes using this same element of separation between living spaces and sleeping spaces.
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