Seidler was unequalled in the art of self-promotion and intelligently exploited the boom-and-bust nature of the building industry and tax laws to produce a book each low cycle ready in time for the next upturn.

The central role of photography in Seidler’s architecture has yet to be properly explored, especially the relationship between the architect and Max Dupain. Reyner Banham, the English critic, on a visit to Sydney in the 1960s, caustically remarked that the best thing about Australian architecture was the photography. Max Dupain unquestionably boosted Seidler’s reputation. Seidler was an excellent amateur photographer, as demonstrated in his Grand Tour book. He would photograph his buildings before a Dupain shoot to ensure Dupain did not miss the most iconic images. Over time, this led Seidler to shape his architecture in anticipation of how it would photograph later. Photography, it seems, was his main criterion of architectural excellence. The photographic image served as a gauge of his architectural achievement. It was also his testimony for posterity.

Philip Drew (Annandale, NSW)
wrote texts for Harry Seidler from 1974 to 1992.

The long and the shortish

Dear Editor,

In October 2013 Peter Rose sent an email to Black Inc. which he copied to me, complaining that yet again no essay from Australian Book Review had been chosen for The Best Australian Essays 2013 which, for the first time, I had edited. I replied politely pointing out that I had no idea about what had happened in the past; that two essays from ABR had been long-listed and carefully considered; but that, as ABR overwhelmingly published shortish book reviews, it was not altogether surprising that in an anthology as selective as Best Australian Essays no essay from ABR had made the final cut. Rose did not reply.

In the February edition of ABR, the following anthologies were reviewed: The Best Australian Stories 2013, The Best Australian Poems 2013, The Best Australian Science Writing 2013, Now You Shall Know: Newcastle Poetry Prize Anthology, and The Best of the Lifted Brow. Somehow, however, The Best Australian Essays 2013 was not. Readers of ABR can draw their own conclusions.

ABR received very many hundreds of thousands of dollars in public subsidy during the time I was Chairperson of its editorial board under the editorships of both Helen Daniel and Peter Rose. Public subsidy since then has grown in size. For that reason, if for no other, it is reasonable to expect that the magazine should be edited according to professional standards.

Robert Manne, Editor, The Best Australian Essays 2013

The Editor replies:

ABR readers might well conclude that Black Inc. had fair coverage in our February anthology survey: two of the five anthologies under review were Black Inc. titles. Magazines – like anthologies – are necessarily selective. Balance and timing are other considerations. Our review of The Best Australian Essays 2013 appears in this issue. (Our contributor was of course unaware of the above letter or of my views and comments in this regard.)

Robert Manne suggests that ABR ‘overwhelmingly [publishes] shortish book reviews’. With respect, this is an outmoded view of what ABR does. ABR often publishes reviews of 2000 or 3000 words. Here I think of Neal Blewett’s grand series of review essays on Labor leaders, the most recent of which, on Gough Whitlam (November 2012), ran to 2740 words. Are these longer pieces not essayistic in nature or scope?

More to the point, ABR regularly publishes substantial essays running to 7000 or 8000 words, largely because of the Calibre Prize and the ABR Fellowships. Those published during the relevant period for the Black Inc. anthology included Matt Rubinstein’s ‘Body and Soul: Copyright Law and Enforcement in the Age of the Electronic Book’ (2012 Calibre winner), David Collis’s ‘Who’s Afraid of the “E” Word: Building Equity among Australian Schools’, Ruth Starke’s ‘Media Don: Political Enigma in Pink Shorts’, Martin Thomas’s magnificent 2013 Calibre Prize-winning essay ‘Because It’s Your Country: Bringing Back the Bones to West Arnhem Land’, Kerryn Goldsworthy’s ‘Everyone’s a Critic’, and Helen Ennis’s ‘Olive Cotton at Spring Forest’. Editors are famously partial animals, but to my mind the decision not to include even one of ABR’s longer features looks odd.