Penelope Seidler AM (b. 1938), architect, is one of three children of barrister and state parliamentarian Clive Evatt QC (1900–1984) and his wife Marjorie. Seidler grew up in the upper north shore suburb of Wahroonga and studied philosophy, history and anthropology at the University of Sydney before switching to architecture. By this time, Harry Seidler had become acquainted with Penelope's father, who had been the New South Wales Minister for Housing in the early 1950s. Seidler met his future wife at a party in North Sydney in 1957. 'I could see that he had drive', she recollected in an interview in 2016, and though she wasn't convinced at the time that he was going to be all that successful, 'there was something about his power of expression and determination that I thought: this is what I want, this is what I want to do.' They married on her twentieth birthday in December 1958.
After becoming registered as an architect, she joined Harry Seidler & Associates in 1964, became director in 1966 and has been in this role since. In the cultural sector, Seidler has held positions on the councils of the Museum of Contemporary Art and the National Gallery of Australia and also the Museum of Modern Art, New York and the Venice Biennale. She endowed the Seidler Chair in Architectural Practice at the University of New South Wales and also funds a PhD scholarship for UNSW students. Seidler established the University of Sydney's Visiting Professorship in Architectural History, funded by her gift of one million dollars; and in 2015 she donated $750,000 towards the establishment of the University's Chau Chak Wing Museum. The holder of honorary doctorates from Sydney University and UNSW, she was made a Member of the Order of Australia in 2008, and a Chevalier of the Légion d’Honneur in 2011. Seidler still lives in Sydney, in the Killara house she designed with her husband, constructed in 1967.
