VENICE.- SMAC San Marco Art Centre and the Chau Chak Wing Museum at the University of Sydney present Migrating Modernism. The architecture of Harry Seidler. The exhibition is a major retrospective of the life and work of Austrian-born Australian modern architect Harry Seidler (Vienna 1923 - Sydney 2006). As one of the most influential modern architects, Seidler was responsible for designing numerous pioneering buildings in Australia, and he also designed buildings in Mexico, Paris, Hong Kong and, by the end of his career, back in the city of his birth, Vienna.

Migrating Modernism. The architecture of Harry Seidler is curated by Ann Stephen from CCWM and Paolo Stracchi from the University’s School of Architecture Design and Planning, with curatorial advisor Nikolaus Hirsch. The exhibition considers in depth both individual projects and Seidler’s collaborations with architects and artists. These include Josef Albers, Alexander Calder, Helen Frankenthaler, Frank Stella, Lin Utzon and Sol LeWitt. Seidler also collaborated with the famed Italian structural engineer Pier Luigi Nervi. Migrating Modernism. The architecture of Harry Seidler presents materials, such as letters, drawings, and models together with personal documents and the artworks of those who either influenced him or with whom he collaborated.

Ann Stephen: “Living in Sydney, we see how Harry Seidler’s modern vision introduced a distinctly cosmopolitan culture to Australian cities—not only through his buildings, but also through the art he brought into public spaces.”

Paolo Stracchi: "Beyond its refined formal language, Seidler’s architecture stands as a reflection of the broader cultural, historical, and architectural conditions of its time.”

Harry Seidler escaped Nazi-ruled Vienna at the age of 15, fleeing to England before being interned as an enemy alien and later deported to further internment camps in Canada, where he, later, upon release completed his first degree in architecture and became registered as an architect.

Seidler later moved to the United States, studying and working under a remarkable lineage of masters – Walter Gropius, Josef Albers, and Marcel Breuer, and worked with Oscar Niemeyer in Brazil – before moving to Sydney at the age of 24. A decade later, he met Penelope, who became his wife, life companion and professional partner. United by a deep passion for architecture and art, they built a life enriched by collaborations with artists such as Alexander Calder, Josef Albers, Helen Frankenthaler, Frank Stella, Lin Utzon and Sol LeWitt. Seidler also collaborated with the famed Italian structural engineer Pier Luigi Nervi.

After studying in the Americas, Seidler arrived in Sydney in 1948 to design his parents a house – the Rose Seidler House. He started his private practice in 1949. In Australia, he emerged as one of the most prominent figures of the modern movement, with his work spanning radical single houses to monumental towers.

Partly trained in an engineering school, Seidler’s technical expertise, especially of reinforced concrete, was rare amongst his generation of designers, and set him apart from his peers. This also provided the foundation for the fluid forms he produced with Pier Luigi Nervi that characterized his work from the early 1960s. The combination of his engineering competence and sculptural flair meant that he was one of the few designers of his age capable of fulfilling the modernist dream of integrating art and technology.

Celebrated as one of the most influential voices of the modern movement in Australia, Seidler shaped a legacy spanning single-family houses, inventive towers, public buildings and progressive housing schemes. These were realised in cities as varied as Sydney, Acapulco, Paris, Hong Kong, and his native Vienna. Seidler’s life and work trace the arc of modernism as both a personal journey and a global narrative, inviting reflection on architecture as a layered expression of society and a medium through which ideas migrate across continents and time.

As Jørn Utzon, architect of the Sydney Opera House once said: “Harry is the best example of how a newcomer, a migrant, attacks the problem of getting something built. He taught others to achieve this, including myself. He was a marvellously gifted architect… showing a new way of living in the modern times.”

The exhibition opens with the launch of SMAC San Marco Art Centre, a new centre for the arts in the heart of Venice, located in the Procuratie on Saint Mark’s Square, which was recently renovated by Pritzker-prize winning architect David Chipperfield. Migrating Modernism. The architecture of Harry Seidler coincides with the opening of the 19th International Architecture Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia.

The Procuratie also hosts The Home of The Human Safety Net on the third floor, with the interactive exhibition A World of Potential, an immersive journey in which visitors are led to discover their strengths and can connect to the Foundation's programs.