In 1967, Penelope Seidler and her husband, the legendary late Harry
Seidler, moved into the house they had collaboratively designed. The Killara
House, where Penelope has lived for over forty years, is situated on what is
now called the Harry Seidler Reserve. The house is a monument to Seidler’s
revolutionary architectural style, and a testament to the pair’s renowned
artistic taste.
The house is built on what Penelope calls an ‘architect’s
block’; it’s “steeply sloping, surrounded by trees, a creek at one end, a bush
reserve at another and no immediate neighbours” being exactly what they wanted.
It has a split plan over four half-levels while the machined palette remains
quite visceral and expresses the fundamental structure of the house.
The house remains virtually unchanged since the 1960s with
wet-look quartzite stone floors and Tasmanian oak ceilings. Also untouched is
the vast collection of art that the pair shared, on display throughout the
massive house. Today, the house is on the NSW State Heritage Register and is
becoming a pop culture icon in itself, just as its namesake Harry Seidler
indeed is!
Interestingly though, Penelope had this to say: “Funnily enough
I find people like the house a lot better now than they did when it was first
built. They thought it was all too stark and found the concrete too
confronting. I think it’s beautiful. There’s a medieval quality to the masonry
walls, and the texture of timber all around, it’s like my castle. Harry liked
things tough; he always said this house was indestructible, and he’s
absolutely right.”
Photographs by Max Dupain and plans via the State Library of NSW.