This interesting building was originally designed in 1968 by the renowned, outspoken, prize-winning architect, Harry Seidler AO, (1923-2006), AC.

Apartment 31B is for sale through Angelo Bouras and Tonia Croft

Seidler loathed council interference in his  “multum in parvo” designs; creating as much usable space as possible from as little as possible

At first glance its design may appear as a bleak, grey, Brutalist-style/modernist, set of boxes using unsustainable concrete set up hard against its chic Art Deco neighbour, Ashdown, to its south and the heritage-listed 19^th century mansion, Ashdown, to its north.

However, it is more exceptional than first thought.

Its vociferous, bow-tie wearing architect said, “I detest bureaucrats and councils” and designed according to his own philosophy.

Seidler was interned in a concentration camp during World War II and grew to loath authority. Seidler fled Austria as it embraced Hitler’s Nazism in 1938.

International Lodge is actually two buildings as originally designed; an eight-level apartment block facing Elizabeth Bay Road with a six-storey building at the rear with its own roof-top swimming pool.

Originally known as the Ling Apartments it was designed for 62 small apartments containing apartments of 40 square metres with studios of 29 square metres and is listed on the Register of Significant Buildings by the Australian Institute of Architects. It is not known when or why the name was changed.

In 2014 the entire building was refurbished.

Apartments on the western side have views over Elizabeth Bay to Sydney Harbour and the Harbour Bridge from panoramic sliding glass windows.

Despite this, the principal facade however of the main building is not to the west of Elizabeth Bay Road or the west.

It is to the north east to capture morning light.

Seidler’s European training taught him that prospect, the environmental impact from a site, was more important than aspect, the view towards a building.

“Architecture is not just putting up buildings: its design should be music frozen in time,” Seidler said, quoting the famous 19th century German poet, von Goethe (1749-1832).

“It’s an amalgam of taste, technology and environment: it’s the highest form of art.”

Seidler was both genius and iconoclast who, paradoxically, designed some of Sydney’s icons including the Horizon Apartments, 184 Forbes Street, Darlinghurst (1998), Blues Point Tower (1961), Arlington Apartments, Edgecliff (1965), the Gemini twin towers, Potts Point, (1969), The Cove in The Rocks (2004) and Elizabeth Bay’s Ithaca Gardens, (1960), where Seidler and his wife Penelope, also an architect, lived before building their home at Killara, among many others.

Seidler changed Sydney’s skyline and signalled a dramatic shift in the way we live, a move away from suburbia to European-style city living.

And our area has the most intense cluster of Seidler buildings.

He received over 15 major national and international awards for his oeuvre.

Hear and see more from Harry Seidler about his fascinating life and work:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AsTx4uJMvdY

by Andrew Woodhouse

Heritage Solutions