"Architecture students today learn about everything except actually building" says Penelope Seidler

Architecture students today are being let down by their education, Australian architect Penelope Seidler tells Dezeen in this interview.

"I think young architects are lost," she said. "They want to know what to do, but the teaching seems to be not very particular."

"They're taught all about good things – sustainability, environmentalism, friendly with society, all those things," she added. "They seem to learn everything but actually building."

"The required attributes of an architect are that one should have a good knowledge of building materials first of all, and structural knowledge – you need to learn a lot about how buildings are held up – but I think they should have education about aesthetics."

Penelope Seidler is the director of Sydney-based architecture firm Harry Seidler and Associates, founded by her late husband.

She was speaking to Dezeen at the opening of a major retrospective on Harry Seidler at the San Marco Art Center (SMAC) in Venice.

Harry Seidler fled Nazi-ruled Austria as a teenager to eventually become one of Australia's most significant architects. He has been called the father of Australian modernism, particularly known for his work in lightweight concrete.

Today's architecture "very capricious"

Penelope and Harry Seidler married in 1958, and she joined his studio in 1964 after qualifying as an architect.

Speaking about how the profession has changed since Harry Seidler and Associates was founded in 1960, Penelope Seidler – who is also a qualified accountant – said she is "very disappointed in most new buildings".

"Architecturally the problems, in historical terms, were to confront the structural challenges," she said.

"Those problems have been solved – anything is possible and there are no constraints, but visually, I don't think people learn much."

"[Architecture today] is very capricious. You can now build whatever you like wherever you like, but whether it's rational or not, I don't know."

The SMAC exhibition, which is one of two inaugural shows at the gallery following a recent renovation by British architect David Chipperfield, explores Harry Seidler's difficult journey to success.

After fleeing Vienna for Britain in 1938 he was interned by the authorities as an enemy alien and subsequently spent time in internment camps near Liverpool and on the Isle of Man before being shipped to Quebec, Canada.

He was eventually released from internment to study architecture at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, and later attended Harvard Graduate School of Design under Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer.

During school holidays he worked with Alvar Aalto in Boston drawing up plans for the Baker dormitory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

He followed his parents to Sydney, where they had emigrated, initially to design a home for them. The modernist Rose Seidler House was completed in the suburb of Wahroonga in 1950.

Harry Seidler decided to stay in Australia and built more private homes, including working with Penelope on the design of their own house in Killara, Sydney.

He went on to build towers in Sydney and then global projects such as the Australian Embassy in Paris with Breuer and Pier Luigi Nervi.

Nevertheless, Penelope Seidler described her late husband as a "total outsider" in Australia.

"Harry suffered from the fact that he was regarded by many as un-Australian – 'the foreigner'," she said.

Many of his clients were immigrants, she explained, citing Dick Dusseldorp, founder of developer Lendlease, as "the one who could see something in Harry".

Dusseldorp commissioned one of Harry Seidler's most significant projects, the Australia Square Tower.

At the time of its construction in 1967, the Australia Square Tower was the world's tallest lightweight concrete building and introduced the concept of a large public open plaza with prominent artworks to office towers in Australia.

Harry Seidler and Associates would go on to build a number of significant concrete buildings, which – in his words – aimed for "aesthetic dematerialisation", including the Hong Kong Club Building in 1984.

"People say concrete is a bad thing but nonetheless, it's durable," said Penelope Seidler. "We all want to be sustainable and there's a lot spoken about sustainability," she added. "I'm not sure everybody knows exactly what it means."

As well as learning his trade under the direction of Breuer, Gropius and Aalto, Harry Seidler spent several months in 1948 working in Rio de Janeiro with Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer.

But even with all these significant 20th century architects shaping his student years, Harry Seidler felt he learned most about aesthetics by studying under the painter Josef Albers at Black Mountain College in North Carolina, according to Penelope Seidler.

Her advice to architecture students today is to study history.

"Study architectural history, and learn from that," she said.

Other interviews recently featured on Dezeen include a conversation with filmmaker Beatrice Minger Eileen Gray docu-drama and Norman Foster's thoughts on automobile design.

The main photo is by Enrico Fiorese.

Migrating Modernism: The architecture of Harry Seidler is on show at SMAC Venice until 13 July 2025. See Dezeen Events Guide for all the latest information you need to know to attend the event, as well as a list of other architecture and design events taking place around the world.

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