Vienna: Apartment Schütte-Lihotzky

1967 – 1969

Architect: Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky

Franzensgasse 16, Vienna, Austria

In 1970, architect Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky moved into her apartment on the sixth floor of the newly built apartment building on Franzensgasse in Vienna. She spent the last thirty years of her life there.

Starting in 1967, she planned the design of the rooms and their furnishings. The 55 m² living space combines living, eating, working and sleeping areas. The 35 m² terrace completes the living space with a green outdoor area.

Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky

Margarete Lihotzky was born in Vienna in 1897. After two years of training in lithography, printing and technical drawing at the Graphische Lehr- und Versuchsanstalt in Vienna, she studied architecture at the Kunstgewerbeschule under Oskar Strnad and Heinrich Tessenow. In 1918, she was the first woman to graduate with a diploma.

In 1918, she was the first woman to graduate. After working in the offices of Oskar Strnad and Robert Oerley, she spent time abroad in Rotterdam in 1919/20, where she became acquainted with the pioneering housing projects of J.J.P. Oud.

Werkbund Estate and Municipal Buildings

Schütte-Lihotzky is represented in the Vienna Werkbund Estate with a house at Woinovichgasse 2 and 4. In the 1920s, Schütte-Lihotzky, who also collaborated with Adolf Loos, planned the Otto Haas Hof municipal building at Winarskystrasse 16-20 in the 20th district.

Ernst May and Frankfurt

From 1925 to 1930, she worked in Ernst May‘s department of building construction for the city of Frankfurt. Under the direction of Eugen Kaufmann, she applied the rationalization ideas of the building industry to housing construction.

Frankfurt Kitchen

The Frankfurt kitchen, designed by Lihotzky and installed in some 10,000 apartments between 1926 and 1930, was both pragmatic and aesthetically groundbreaking.

In 1927, Lihotzky began lecturing on the advantages of the practical working kitchen and publishing her designs in trade journals.

Heim und Technik Munich 1928

In 1928, together with designs by architects Gretel Norkauer and Katt Both, she presented one of her type designs for “The Working Woman’s Apartment” at the Heim und Technik exhibition in Munich. The twenty square meter living space was fully furnished with flexible furniture. The bathroom and kitchen were integrated into small niches. A small balcony extended the living space, which appeared comparatively spacious thanks to the folding and adjustable furniture and the wide window front.

All housewives must be shown the new principles of interior design and housekeeping. That is why the exhibition Heim und Technik München 1928 is intended for everyone, for the housewife as such, for the woman with two jobs, for the single working woman, and last but not least for the home economics teacher, who has to inform about the available possibilities, instruct in the rational use of all innovations, and impart knowledge and skills. (Luise Kisselbach, exhibition catalogue Heim und Technik, Munich 1928, pp. 70-73)

Soviet Union and Turkey

In April 1927, Margarete Lihotzky married her Frankfurt colleague Wilhelm Schütte, who worked in the school construction department. In October 1930, the group around Ernst May and Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky left for the Soviet Union as one of the first large Western European building teams. Six cities were planned in Siberia, and Schütte-Lihotzky took over the construction management for all children’s facilities, kindergartens, nurseries, and educational institutions, heading a department with a total of thirty employees. After the department was disbanded in 1933, Schütte-Lihotzky and her husband remained in Moscow until 1937, where she planned further kindergartens.

At the invitation of Bruno Taut, they came to Istanbul, where Schütte-Lihotzky worked as a courier between the Austrian resistance group in Turkey and the Communist Party in Austria, in addition to her work in Taut’s office. In 1941, she was arrested in Vienna and sentenced to fifteen years in prison in Aichach, Bavaria. After the war, Schütte-Lihotzky worked as a lecturer and speaker. She died in January 2000 in Vienna.

The Apartment

Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky drew detailed plans with floor plans and wall elevations for each room of the apartment. The careful design of the room structures, the lines of the wooden strips and the different wall treatments create a dignified atmosphere. The Kyrgyz tapestry in the sleeping and reading niche is a special room closure and eye-catcher.

The architect thought about the fact that she might need a caregiver in her old age. So she arranged to rent a small apartment next door. Mostly students lived there, with whom she had regular contact.

The Kitchen

While planning the interior of her new apartment between 1967 and 1969, the architect also designed her own kitchen, which she used throughout her life.

After Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky’s death in 2000, the next tenant took over the apartment and renovated the kitchen according to her wishes.

Since the early 1920s, Schütte-Lihotzky had amassed a wealth of experience in the rationalization of housekeeping in residential buildings.

Now she applied this knowledge to her own needs in old age: ergonomic working heights and pullouts make it easier to work while seated, and the wall units are recessed into the wall to prevent dirt from accumulating.

Optimized work processes, short distances, and a reduction in the number of handles and steps are of paramount importance. In her kitchen, the connection between the kitchen and the dining area is achieved by means of pass-throughs, one of which leads into the room to the dining table and the other directly to the adjoining terrace.

Reconstruction of the Kitchen

The reconstruction was planned and carried out according to the architect’s original plans and photos from the time when the kitchen was in use.

The Kitchen Equipment

The kitchen cabinets are made of laminated panels, green on the outside and red on the inside. The chrome handles from KPM Austria are original. The countertop is white with green edges.

The reconstructed serving hatch to the dining table with wood paneling and sliding door can be closed on the kitchen side. The wood panelled upper runner is accompanied by a light strip.

The window to the terrace is again an original Pierson sliding window with six millimeter laminated safety glass and a solid mahogany frame and original hardware.

A floor cupboard, the top of which folds up, was designed to hold a bread slicer.

Refrigerator and Sink

The fridge is a new model. It has a white-painted metal door that looks like the original one.

The work surface in front of the window can be enlarged by three pull-outs underneath, with three drawers underneath.

The right-hand cupboard on the window side hides a white shelf behind the door for eight plastic containers for various non-perishable foods.

The two-bowl sink is the same as the original. The wall-mounted faucet above it in the center has wing handles designed by Danish designer Verner Panton.

The cabinet under the sink has two semicircular shelves for cleaning supplies. There is also room for the trash can.

Stove, Tiles and Ironing Board

The stove, model AEG Deluxe 1969, an under-counter model with a hob integrated into the worktop, could be purchased second hand. Unfortunately it is not yet in working order.

The wall units have larch veneer fronts with 6 cm high green laminate handles. Like the base units, they have a red coating on the inside.

The wall tiles are Japanese arabesque tiles in Florentine orange and almost match the original Schütte-Lihotzky tiles, which were a stronger red-orange.

The ironing board is mounted on the wall next to the door and can be folded down and placed on the window table for ironing.

Renovation and partial reconstruction of the Apartment

The architect’s extensive archive, which she kept in the apartment’s closet, was given to the Archive of the University of Applied Arts Vienna after her death.

Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky wanted the apartment to be taken over by the art historian Ulrike Jenni, who had some changes made.

After Ulrike Jenni’s death in 2020, the apartment was placed under a preservation order and the rooms and furnishings were renovated and partially reconstructed.

All the walls and ceilings were examined and a very finely tuned color scheme and surface quality was found. The shades of yellow, green, white and gray, as well as the surfaces, were restored in an elaborate process.

Flooring and Tapestry

The rooms were designed by the architect with square, non-directional flooring that harmonizes with each other. The parquet flooring in the living room was reinstalled, while the original flooring was retained in the other rooms.

The Kyrgyz tapestry that the architect had installed in the bedroom alcove was still there. However, it was in such a fragile condition that restoration work was required before it could be reinstalled. This work was carried out by the Textile Department of the Art Collection and Archive of the University of Applied Arts Vienna.

Margarete Schütte Lihotzky Center

Today, the apartment is open to the public as the Margarete Schütte Lihotzky Center.