Harry Seidler Drawings 亨利‧施得拿作品繪圖

This fonds consists of two ink drawings of the exterior and interior of the Hong Kong Club and Office Building (1980-1984) by architectural renderer Helmut Jacoby from 1981. These drawings represent a rare instance in which Seidler would commission Jacoby to produce these detailed perspective drawings as part of his final design presentation to the client. These two perspectives were drawn based on Jacoby’s astute and imaginative interpretation of Seidler’s two-dimensional drawings and (more importantly) Seidler’s design intent manifested in three-dimensional form.

Overall, the two drawings effectively demonstrate Seidler’s unique achievement to have married Italian structural engineer Pier Luigi Nervi’s powerful structure with the flowing spaces and forms of the Club’s tower and interiors. More importantly, it presents how the Hong Kong Club had served as a laboratory of experimental form and structure for Seidler, which was to have a lasting effect on his subsequent domestic architecture, and other work. Thereafter, opposing concave and convex curves are commonly featured in his houses and apartments, both internally and externally. The building not only shows Seidler's achievement in marrying form and structure but represents Hong Kong's place in the world in the 1980s as a place for architectural experimentation.

The Harry Seidler Drawings were donated to M+ in 2020 by Penelope Seidler.

Arranged chronologically.