75 years ago this Wahroonga house stunned the North Shore. Now it’s re-opened to visitors
It has been described as “one of the finest and purest examples of mid-century modern domestic architecture in Australia”.
Huw Bradshaw
June 13, 2025
Rose Seidler House reopens to the public on Sunday after three months of conservation works.
The Wahroonga house, designed by famed architect Harry Seidler for his parents Rose and Max, was built in 1950, and soon became the talk of the North Shore.
The white concrete box, which employed colour blocking and asymmetry, ushered in a new era of modernist residential design in Australia, and bore little resemblance to the homes surrounding it.
Locally sourced sandstone supports suggested the home was suspended in the air, while inside Seidler was years ahead of the game, using sleek, broad glass panes to emphasise the view onto Ku-ring-gai Chase bushland.
Seidler once said “this house explodes the surfaces that enclose a normal house or space, and turns it into a continuum of free standing planes”.
In 1989 the NSW Office of Environment and Heritage became guardians of the property, and has leased it for use as a public museum. According to the site’s Heritage listing, it shows significant “influence on the character of domestic architecture in New South Wales”.
Harry Seidler’s other work includes Australia Square Tower, the MLC Centre, Ian Thorpe Aquatic Centre and the highly divisive Blues Point Tower.
In 1989, the NSW Historic Houses Trust described Rose Seidler House as “one of the finest and purest examples of mid-century modern domestic architecture in Australia”.
Rose Seidler House is open on Sundays from 10am to 4pm. Bookings via the Museums of History NSW website.
