Margarete "Grete" Schütte-Lihotzky ( Lihotzky; 23 January 1897 – 18 January 2000) was an Austrian

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs, and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

and a communist activist in the Austrian resistance to Nazism. She is mostly remembered today for designing what is known as the Frankfurt kitchen.

Early life and education

Margarete Lihotzky was born on 23 January 1897 into a

bourgeois The bourgeoisie ( , ) are a class of business owners, merchants and wealthy people, in general, which emerged in the Late Middle Ages, originally as a "middle class" between the peasantry and Aristocracy (class), aristocracy. They are tradition ...

family in

Margareten Margareten (; ) is the fifth district of Vienna (). It is near the old town of Vienna and was established as a district in 1850, but borders changed later.Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...

. Her grandfather Gustav Lihotzky was a mayor of Czernowitz, Ducal Bukovina, and her mother Julie Bode was relative of Wilhelm von Bode. Her father was a liberal-minded civil servant, Erwin Lihotzky, whose pacifism made him welcome the end of the Habsburg Empire and the founding of the republic in 1918. Lihotzky became the first female student at the '' Kunstgewerbeschule'', today the University of Applied Arts Vienna), where renowned artists such as Josef Hoffmann, Anton Hanak, and Oskar Kokoschka taught. Lihotzky almost did not get in. Her mother persuaded a close friend to ask the famous artist Gustav Klimt for a letter of recommendation. In 1997, celebrating her 100th birthday and reminiscing about her decision to study architecture, she remarked that "in 1916 no one would have conceived of a woman being commissioned to build a house – not even myself." Lihotzky studied architecture under Oskar Strnad, winning prizes for her designs even before her graduation. Strnad was one of the pioneers of ''sozialer Wohnbau'' in Vienna, affordable yet comfortable

social housing Public housing, also known as social housing, refers to Subsidized housing, subsidized or affordable housing provided in buildings that are usually owned and managed by local government, central government, nonprofit organizations or a ...

for the working classes. Inspired by him, Lihotzky understood that connecting design to functionality was the new trend that would be in demand in the future. After graduating, among her other projects, she collaborated with Adolf Loos, planning settlements for World War I invalids and veterans. During this time she also worked alongside architect Josef Frank and philosopher Otto Neurath in the context of the newly founded Austrian Settlement and Allotment Garden Association where she developed core houses. Her memories of these and many other Austrian architects and intellectuals are collected in her book ''Warum ich Architektin wurde'' ('Why I Became an Architect').

Housing design

In 1926 she was called to the ''Hochbauamt'' of the City Council of

Frankfurt am Main Frankfurt am Main () is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Hesse. Its 773,068 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the List of cities in Germany by population, fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located in the forela ...

, Germany, by the architect and city planner Ernst May where she worked on the New Frankfurt project. May had been given the political power and financial resources to solve Frankfurt's housing shortage. He and Schütte-Lihotzky, together with the rest of May's assembled architectural staff, successfully brought functional clarity and humanitarian values to thousands of the city's housing units. Lihotzky continued her work by designing

kindergarten Kindergarten is a preschool educational approach based on playing, singing, practical activities such as drawing, and social interaction as part of the transition from home to school. Such institutions were originally made in the late 18th cen ...

s, students' homes, schools and similar community buildings. Schütte-Lihotzky designed kindergarten pavilions based on the ideas of Maria Montessori. In Frankfurt she met colleague Wilhelm Schütte, whom she married the following year.

Frankfurt Kitchen

As part of the New Frankfurt-project Lihotzky created the Frankfurt Kitchen in 1926, which was the prototype of the built-in kitchen now prevalent in the Western world. Based on scientific research by U.S. management expert Frederick Winslow Taylor and her own research, Lihotzky used a railroad dining car kitchen as her model to design a "housewife's laboratory" using a minimum of space but offering a maximum of comfort and equipment. The kitchen measured just 1.9 x 3.4 meters. Kitchen surfaces were painted blue-green as scientists claimed the color repelled flies. The Frankfurt City Council eventually installed 10,000 of her mass-produced, prefabricated kitchens in newly-built working-class apartments. On her 100th birthday Schütte-Lihotzky commented "You'll be surprised that, before I conceived the Frankfurt Kitchen in 1926, I never cooked myself. At home in Vienna my mother cooked, in Frankfurt I went to the ''Wirthaus'' estaurant-pub I designed the kitchen as an architect, not as a housewife." In September 2024, in central Vienna, a 1970s version of the Frankfurt kitchen, restored by architect Renate Allmayer-Beck on the basis of Schütte-Lihotzky's original plans and photos, was opened to the public.

Wartime activities

As the political situation in the

Weimar Republic The Weimar Republic, officially known as the German Reich, was the German Reich, German state from 1918 to 1933, during which it was a constitutional republic for the first time in history; hence it is also referred to, and unofficially proclai ...

deteriorated and shifted to the political right, Schütte-Lihotzky joined a team of seventeen architects, the "May Brigade", led by architect Ernst May and including her husband and Erich Mauthner, also from Vienna. In 1930 they travelled to Moscow by train. There the group was commissioned to help realize the first of Stalin's five-year plans by building the industrial city of Magnitogorsk in the southern Ural Mountains. On their arrival, the city consisted of mud huts and barracks. It was to have 200,000 inhabitants in a few years' time, the majority the populace working in the

steel Steel is an alloy of iron and carbon that demonstrates improved mechanical properties compared to the pure form of iron. Due to steel's high Young's modulus, elastic modulus, Yield (engineering), yield strength, Fracture, fracture strength a ...

industry. Although the May Brigade was credited with the construction of 20 cities in three years, political conditions were bad and the results mixed. May left Russia in 1933 when his contract was up. With the exception of brief business trips and lecture tours to Japan and China, Schütte-Lihotzky remained in the Soviet Union until 1937. She and her husband moved first to London and later to Paris. Also, in 1933 Schütte-Lihotzky had presented some of her work at the

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

world's fair A world's fair, also known as a universal exhibition, is a large global exhibition designed to showcase the achievements of nations. These exhibitions vary in character and are held in different parts of the world at a specific site for a perio ...

, " Century of Progress". In 1938 Schütte-Lihotzky, together with her husband, was called to

Istanbul Istanbul is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, constituting the country's economic, cultural, and historical heart. With Demographics of Istanbul, a population over , it is home to 18% of the Demographics ...

, Turkey, to teach at the Academy of Fine Arts, and to reunite with exiled German architect Bruno Taut. (Unfortunately Taut died soon after their arrival.) On the eve of World War II Istanbul was a haven for exiled Europeans, a common destination for exiled Germans, and the Schüttes encountered artists such as the musicians

Béla Bartók Béla Viktor János Bartók (; ; 25 March 1881 – 26 September 1945) was a Hungarian composer, pianist and ethnomusicologist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century; he and Franz Liszt are regarded as Hunga ...

and

Paul Hindemith Paul Hindemith ( ; ; 16 November 189528 December 1963) was a German and American composer, music theorist, teacher, violist and conductor. He founded the Amar Quartet in 1921, touring extensively in Europe. As a composer, he became a major advo ...

. In Istanbul Schütte-Lihotzky met fellow Austrian Herbert Eichholzer, an architect who at the time was busy organizing Communist resistance to the

Nazi Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...

regime. In 1939 Schütte-Lihotzky joined the Austrian Communist Party (KPÖ) and in December 1940, of her own free will, together with Eichholzer, travelled back to Vienna to secretly contact the Austrian communist resistance movement. Schütte-Lihotzky agreed to meet a leading Resistance member nicknamed "Gerber", Erwin Puschmann, and help set up a communications line with Istanbul. She met "Gerber" at the Cafe Viktoria on 22 January 1941, where they were surprised and arrested by the

Gestapo The (, ), Syllabic abbreviation, abbreviated Gestapo (), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of F ...

, only 25 days after her arrival. While Eichholzer and other resistance fighters, who had also been seized, were charged with high treason, sentenced to death by the ''Volksgerichtshof'' and executed in 1943, Schütte-Lihotzky was sentenced to 15 years of imprisonment and taken to a prison in Aichach,

Bavaria Bavaria, officially the Free State of Bavaria, is a States of Germany, state in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the list of German states by area, largest German state by land area, comprising approximately 1/5 of the total l ...

. She was liberated by U.S. troops on 29 April 1945.

Post-war

In 1945, after the war had ended, she moved to

Sofia Sofia is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Bulgaria, largest city of Bulgaria. It is situated in the Sofia Valley at the foot of the Vitosha mountain, in the western part of the country. The city is built west of the Is ...

Bulgaria Bulgaria, officially the Republic of Bulgaria, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern portion of the Balkans directly south of the Danube river and west of the Black Sea. Bulgaria is bordered by Greece and Turkey t ...

, where she came up with the Kindergarten System, a modular architectural system of plans she designed for the municipality. Positing that the advancement of women would benefit society at large, she wrote of her Kindergarten System in Sofia, "The growing percentage of the Bulgarian women in production and in all sectors of the public life of the country will make the establishment of children’s institutions increasingly important in the coming years." It was also during this time that she was able to reunite with her husband, Wilhelm Schütte, after being imprisoned for more than four years for her participation in the Communist Resistance against the Nazi regime. Margarete Schütte-Lihotsky eventually returned to her native Vienna in 1947. Her strong political views – she remained a communist – prevented her from receiving any major public commissions in post-war Austria, despite the fact that innumerable buildings had been destroyed and had to be rebuilt (''Wiederaufbau''). Consequently, apart from designing some private homes, Schütte-Lihotzky worked as a consultant in China, Cuba, and the

German Democratic Republic East Germany, officially known as the German Democratic Republic (GDR), was a country in Central Europe from Foundation of East Germany, its formation on 7 October 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with West Germany (FRG) on ...

. In 1951 she separated from her husband, Wilhelm Schütte. Belatedly, her accomplishments were officially recognized in Austria. She was first recognised for her non-architecture activities: in 1977 she received a medal for her peace work and, in 1978, an honour badge for her work in the Resistance. She received the Architecture Award from the City of Vienna in 1980. In 1985 she published her memoirs, ''Erinnerungen aus dem Widerstand'' ('Memories From the Resistance'). She refused to be honoured in 1988 by Austrian Federal President Kurt Waldheim on the grounds of Waldheim's dubious wartime record. She eventually received the award in 1992. In 1995 she was one of a group of Austrian Holocaust survivors who sued Jörg Haider after a debate in the Austrian parliament on bomb attacks on Romanies in which Haider referred to Nazi

concentration camp A concentration camp is a prison or other facility used for the internment of political prisoners or politically targeted demographics, such as members of national or ethnic minority groups, on the grounds of national security, or for exploitati ...

s as "prison camps". In 1990 a scale model of the Frankfurt Kitchen was put on display in the Austrian Museum for Applied Art in Vienna. She celebrated her 100th birthday in 1997, dancing a short

waltz The waltz ( , meaning "to roll or revolve") is a ballroom dance, ballroom and folk dance, in triple (3/4 time, time), performed primarily in closed position. Along with the ländler and allemande, the waltz was sometimes referred to by the ...

with the Mayor of Vienna and remarking, "I would have enjoyed it, for a change, to design a house for a rich man." Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky died in Vienna, on 18 January 2000, at the age of 102, five days before her 103rd birthday, of complications after contracting influenza. She was interred in the Vienna Central Cemetery.

Commemoration

The Australian singer, writer, and director Robyn Archer wrote a play based on Schütte-Lihotzky's life. ''Architektin'', featuring Helen Morse, Ksenja Logos, Craig Behenna, Duncan Graham, Antje Guenther, Michael Habib and Nick Pelomis, produced by the State Theatre Company of South Australia, and directed by Adam Cook, opened on 2 September 2008 at the Dunstan Playhouse, Adelaide, South Australia. The song "The Frankfurt Kitchen" by Rotifer is another tribute to her work. Schütte-Lihotzky was celebrated in an exhibition ''Cumhuriyet Kadınları Sahneye Çıkıyor: Cevval, Akılcı, Dirençli, Sabırlı ve İnançlı'', (Republican Women Take to the Stage: Brave, Rational, Resistant, Patient and Faithful) organised at Goethe-Institut

Ankara Ankara is the capital city of Turkey and List of national capitals by area, the largest capital by area in the world. Located in the Central Anatolia Region, central part of Anatolia, the city has a population of 5,290,822 in its urban center ( ...

from 5 December 2023 to 4 February 2024 in honour of the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Republic of Turkey and the 90th anniversary of Turkish women gaining the right to vote. It showcased the lives and careers of six women who were educated in the young Turkish Republic and the

and whose careers made an impact on the world. Alongside Schütte-Lihotzky, the exhibition featured archaeologist Halet Çambel, architect Mualla Eyüboğlu Anhegger, Semiha Berksoy, Turkey's first Muslim opera singer, paediatrician Erna Eckstein Schlossmann and computer scientist Marianne Laqueur.

Honours and awards

* Architecture Award of the City of Vienna (1980) *

Austrian Decoration for Science and Art The Austrian Decoration for Science and Art () is a state decoration of the Republic of Austria and forms part of the Orders, decorations, and medals of Austria, Austrian national honours system. History The "Austrian Decoration for Science a ...

(1992) * Grand Decoration of Honour in Gold with Star for Services to the Republic of Austria (1997)

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Schutte-Lihotzky, Margarete 1897 births 2000 deaths Austrian women architects Austrian women centenarians Austrian communists Housing in Germany Austrian resistance members Recipients of the Austrian Decoration for Science and Art Recipients of the Grand Decoration with Star for Services to the Republic of Austria Austrian people of German descent People from Margareten Burials at the Vienna Central Cemetery 20th-century Austrian architects Architects from Vienna