La casa di Penelope e Harry Seidler

At the dawn of the 1950s, Harry Seidler made his official entrance into the Australian architectural scene, bringing to the ‘newest continent’ the expressive language of modernism that had, in the meantime, already become ‘international’. Marking this moment was the iconic house he designed for his parents in Sydney between 1948 and 1950, now known as the Rose Seidler House. In this project, Seidler distinctly conveys – while offering a personal, refined, and eclectic interpretation of the principles he acquired from his masters at the Harvard Graduate School of Design (Gropius and Breuer) – the defining characteristics of a light, white, and European-rooted modern language. However, in his early projects, the power of the Australian landscape had not yet entered among the ‘physical’ materials employed in the architect’s manipulations. A significant transitional milestone is represented by the house Seidler designed for his own family in 1966 in collaboration with his wife, Penelope. In this ‘manifesto house’, the domestic space actively engages with the rich and sometimes untamed nature that assertively permeates the urban environment in Australia. Situated in the Killara district and currently inhabited by Penelope, this residence harmonizes with the dramatic features of its steep site, accentuating the sloping terrain through a boldly articulated profile. The integration with nature is comprehensive; as one navigates through the home’s dynamic interior, every space is visually and physically interconnected, and expansive glass walls draw the inhabitants into the lush green mass of the surrounding ‘forest’. Nevertheless, the house’s appearance is anything but conciliatory or camouflaged in its relationship with the site’s natural topography. Instead, it presents an assertive profile characterized by bold cantilevers, soaring walkways, and protruding béton brut roofs, collectively forming a sculptural ‘bastion’ – an emblem of a deeply expressive approach to keep ‘poetically inhabiting the earth’.