More stories of extraordinary women on the website Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky was the first Austrian architect. She was born on January 23, 1897 in a bourgeois family, and when it turned out that she did not intend to become a wife and mother, and saw her tasks away from the kitchen and the children’s room (although it was outrageous at that time), the family did not encourage her to change. sentences (Margarete got married, but she did not fulfill herself as Mrs. Schütte). Her mother supported young Margarete in implementing her plans. The girl decided to become an architect and decided to apply to the Kunstgewerbeschule, the Vienna University of Applied Arts. She succeeded, and although at the beginning she had to refute accusations that she got in thanks to the patronage of the great Gustav Klimt – her mother’s friend, she quickly proved that she was in the right place.
A woman architect? Funny…
During her studies, she studied excellently, it quickly turned out that she would be a master in her field, she received distinctions and awards. After graduating, she had no problems finding a job. At the beginning, she cooperated in designing housing estates for veterans and disabled people of World War I. They were supposed to be cheap and functional. And that’s what they were. Then Margarete dealt with, among others, designing kindergartens, dormitories, schools and other public buildings. The greatest popularity and recognition (although the latter partly only after many years) was brought to her by the so-called Frankfurt cuisine.
Frankfurt cuisine became a hit
The Frankfurt Kitchen was created when the team of architects she worked with started implementing the program New Frankfurt. The program was intended to solve the housing problems that the city was struggling with, and included the construction of cheap, but modern and functional apartments for the working class. Lihotzky was tasked with designing the kitchen. Certainly no one would have assigned her this task if she had admitted that she had never dabbled in cooking. However, the ambitious architect had a lot of theoretical knowledge and knew where to look for information and inspiration. She used available publications, the theory of rational management, and found what was missing during many weeks of observing women cooking dinner in the kitchen and performing other activities. When creating the Frankfurt kitchen, she modeled it on the kitchen spaces in dining cars and mess rooms.
Lihotzky fulfilled her task perfectly – she created a kitchen measuring just under 3.5 m by 2 m, in which every centimeter was used to the maximum, and everything was thought out so that you could cook and perform other household chores in comfortable conditions, including . ironing. The kitchen had many cabinets, shelves, display cases and drawers with specific purposes, including: gas stove, metal sink and hot water, which has not been available before.
Feminists didn’t like it
Although Lihotzky’s project met with great acclaim, it was not liked by radical feminists who believed that only one person could move in such a small, closed space, which meant that women functioned in the apartment separately from other family members and became as if it were just another kitchen appliance. Frankfurt cuisine experienced a renaissance in the 1990s, when modernist design reigned supreme in interiors and minimalism was appreciated. Over time, the Lihotzky kitchen became an inspiration for IKEA designers. Due to political beliefs and the situation in Europe, Margarete traveled around the world for many years, working, among others, in China and Cuba. In 1980, she was awarded an architectural award by the city of Vienna. She died in 2000 in this city.
Source: Gazeta
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