Harry Seidler

by Wolfgang Forster

Published 18 June 2002
This monograph places the innovative residential complex, the New Danube Housing in Vienna, in the context of Vienna's history of social housing. Starting around 1900, it tells the story of Red Vienna with buildings such as the Karl-Marx-Hof or projects influenced by the Garden City movement, among them buildings constructed by architects such as Adolf Loos, Gerrit Rietveld, Josef Hoffmann or Richard Neutra. It continues by looking at post-1945 social housing and then considers the innovative architecture of Jean Nouvel, Coop Himmelb(l)au, Herzog & de Meuron, Zaha Hadid and Norman Foster. Having examined historical and contemporary developments, the book gives detailed consideration to Harry Seidler's recently completed New Danube Housing, a complex of nearly 900 apartments built on a covered expressway along the Danube.