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

At first glance it may seem incongruous and an anachronism in its streetscape. It may appear as a bleak, grey, Brutalist-style/modernist, Lego-like set of match 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 outspoken, 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. Born in 1923 in Vienna into an upper middle-class Hebraic family, his parents fled Austria as Hitler’s Nazism took over the country 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. The interiors were removed leaving no trace of the original Seidler fit-out.

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.

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

The northern aspect captures Winter sun and warmth and incorporates planter boxes.

Cleverly, the building has a concrete frame structure and non-load-bearing internal walls to make the small internal spaces less restricted by internal configurations.

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

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

But he hated heritage. “Those buildings have no architectural value. They’re not worth anything,” he said.

However, many of his buildings are now heritage-listed which he didn’t object to at the time.

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.

His designs all signalled a dramatic shift in the way we live, a move away from suburbia to European-style city living.

Elizabeth Bay 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