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Margarete Schütte Lihotzky

Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky

Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky (1897–2000), the first woman to qualify as an architect in Austria, studied in 1915–19 under Oskar Strnad and Heinrich Tessenow at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Vienna. Her early work included collaboration with Adolf Loos in the building department of the Verband für Siedlungs- und Kleingartenwesen (Austrian Union of Settlements and Allotment Gardens). In 1926, she went to Frankfurt to work for the building authorities under Ernst May, before going on to the Soviet Union with the ‘May Brigade’ in 1930. There followed teaching activity and an assistantship at the academies in Moscow and Istanbul. After her internment as a member of the resistance (1941–45), she worked for the city building authorities in Sofia, before returning to Vienna as an independent architect and publicist. Her work shows a marked engagement with social issues and is characterised by simplicity and strict functionalism.