Born in 1897 in Vienna, Margarete Lihotzky studied as one of the first female architecture students at the Kunstgewerbeschule (today University of Applied Arts) in Vienna under Oskar Strnad. As in many other cities at that time, rapid urbanization in the context of industrialization, rural-to-urban migration, and the aftermath of WWI had caused a severe housing shortage and poor living conditions among a great portion of the urban population. During her studies she became involved with issues of worker’s housing and ideas on how to improve people’s living conditions in post-war Vienna.
After finishing her studies, Lihotzky worked with Otto Neurath for the settler’s movement and was invited to design and realize around 70 apartments as part of a larger project of “Red Vienna,” an extensive housing program in the 1920s and early 1930s initiated by the municipality of Vienna. In 1926 Lihotzky moved to Frankfurt to work with Ernst May at the city planning office, developing norms on standardization and rationalization in large-scale housing projects. In 1930 May asked her to work with him in Moscow where she spent the following seven years developing kindergarten typologies. The stay was interrupted by an lengthy voyage to Japan and China in 1934 with her husband, Willhelm Schütte. Via Vladivostok they sailed to Japan in order to spend time with Bruno Taut and his wife Erika, who had fled Germany after the Nazis took power in 1933.
They entered China in June 1934 via Shanghai, traveled to Nanking and Beijing, and visited a number of girls’ schools. During the sojourn in China, Margarete Schütte Lihotzky developed guidelines for kindergartens and day care centers for the Chinese ministry of Education, drawing upon her expertise from the Soviet Union, which ended up not being applied. As part of the research for this assignment, the couple visited a number of schools, predominantly girls’ schools, and Margarete Schütte Lihotzky shot a series of photographs showing a Chinese version of a baby stroller and other local furniture and everyday utensils made out of bamboo.
In 1942, landing in Istanbul after a short intermezzo in Paris and London, Lihotzky joined an group of Austrian resistance fighters and traveled back to Austria where, after a few weeks of clandestine activities, she was arrested and sentenced to 15 years in jail. This part of her life is documented in her book Erinnerungen aus dem Widerstand published in 1994.
After the war, Schütte Lihotzky participated in CIAM 6 Congress in Bridgewater and remained a member of the CIAM Austria group throughout the 1950s. In 1956, living in Vienna where she rarely got any commissions from the municipality nor other job opportunities as a declared Communist, Margarete Schütte Lihotzky took a second trip to China as part of an official Austrian delegation of professionals to learn about the progress of the young Communist country.
Margarete Schütte Lihotzky died in Vienna in 2001. (CL)
